


A Wilderness of Glass

by sannlykke



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Adding more characters as they come up, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Monster Hunters, Bastardized Mythology, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, POV Alternating, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-24 03:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6140571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nijimura Shuuzou, karate instructor by day and monster hunter by night, has long been itching for a good challenge. And all Mayuzumi Chihiro ever wants is to be left alone and unquestioned about his so-called sixth sense.</p><p>It's simply unfortunate that Akashi Seijuurou has made them both jump abroad the most absolutely absurd mission in existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight

**Author's Note:**

> this au is based on an obscure chinese novel i read when i was 11 that involved celtic fairytales, undead edgar allan poe and (probably) a lot of drugs. go figure.
> 
> (a lot of the teikou/rakuzan stuff that happened in canon doesn't happen here but some of it does & i guess, well, it'll become more apparent in the text as i go. also! every (most) chapter/s after this will be one pov)
> 
>  
> 
> **happy birthday mayuyu here's another awful au i'm sticking you into <3 **

 

_“Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?”_

\- Charles Baudelaire

 

  

**Tokyo, 1999**

 

Today is a Sunday, and he’s at the basketball court down the street. A couple kids shoot hoops on the other end, laughing, but otherwise it’s empty for the time of day. He can’t think of a reason for this—it’s summer vacation, and usually at least half the court is full.

It’s probably nothing, but Nijimura scans the horizon still, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to double-check.

“Work habit?” Someone asks from behind. Startled, he turns around, but he lets out a sigh once he sees who it is. “…Did I scare you?”

Nijimura throws the basketball at his flatmate, who catches it without a blink. “Shit, don’t do that. At least you’re not Kuroko.”

“Didn’t mean to, sorry,” Himuro replies, but there isn’t a lick of apology in his tone. Figures. “Someone left a voicemail, by the way. Sounds like it’s for you.”

“Huh.”

“Not interested? I think you might want to take a listen at this one, though.”

“Can’t help it. I’ve been getting too many scam messages lately—“ He sees the other’s movements and moves to block, but the ball has already left Himuro’s fingers. It goes in neatly, bouncing off the pavement towards the fence. “…Let’s try that again.”

“Whatever you say, Shuu.”

 

* * *

 

“Nijimura-san.

You’ll recognize my voice, I’m sure—and if you were thinking such, this is really me. If I may, I will get to the point. I am offering you a spot on the Akashi Corporation expedition to Scotland this summer. It would be a delight to have your expertise on the team. I have already arranged to have your itinerary faxed over. Please call back at your soonest convenience, I look forward to our meeting again.”

 

* * *

 

 Mayuzumi sits in the empty last row of the terminal, far enough from the rest of his group that they ignore him completely. It’s just what he wants.

There’s a woman he’s been keeping tabs on out of the corner of his eye; her figure flits listlessly between rows of seats, sometimes hesitantly, sometimes not. _Through_ rows of seats, to be precise—she does not notice Mayuzumi, and soon he returns his attention to the new novel in his hands. Airports with dead people hanging around are never a good sign, though he supposes it’s kind of inevitable considering how long this one’s been around. At least she’s the only one he’s seen here so far. It’s a sight he’s never cared for having and one that’s nominally useful for this expedition, the reasons buried under all the inextricable differences he can think of between _ghost_ and _cryptid_.

Akashi had not seemed to care either way when he’d came calling.

(Of course, Mayuzumi is only here for the paycheck. It’s not as if he can’t survive on his own terms, but the Akashi name and the money tied to it had proved very difficult to ignore for a struggling novelist.)

“Hey, time to board,” comes a chipper voice from above, and Mayuzumi unwillingly looks up at Hayama Kotarou’s grinning face. He points, and a bright blue screen gleefully reminds Mayuzumi that this would be a thirteen-hour flight. “You excited?”

“Not really,” Mayuzumi says dully, but he stands up and sticks the novel into his backpack. The woman has faded from his peripheral vision, and he does not look back as he walks towards the growing line.

 

The Akashi Corporation is the single largest commercial entity to exist in Japan, and apparently its heir has a penchant for trophy hunting. Of course, these rumors only existed in very niche groups of the population, but they had to exist for a _reason_.

Although whatever it is, Nijimura has no idea. After all, it has been nearly a decade since he’d last seen Akashi Seijuurou in person, and a little more than half a dozen since they stopped writing to each other. Were the rumors true, it wouldn’t have been a stretch for Akashi to eventually find out about Nijimura’s little side-hobby. He isn’t sure what to make of seeing his kouhai again after so many years of disconnect—the objective of the mission had come as a surprise, but all Nijimura sees is the fact that Akashi has not changed one bit from wanting the very best he can get. Money is money, and Nijimura’s definitely not making enough of it.

—Though he probably would be, if he’d taken up Himuro’s advice on those other leads. Then again, once had already been enough—sometimes he wonders if his best friend overestimates him, or if getting chased by a fucking _gashadokuro_ is somehow funny to watch.

Whether he deserves it or not is a whole other matter entirely.

Nijimura fights his way through the crowds and boards last-minute, trying his best to look apologetic towards the stewardess checking his ticket with a sigh. He’s always hated the crowds that come with places like this, and the only comfort he gets is the fact that he isn’t the only straggler.

His seat is in first class. Having never set foot anywhere near this particular airline before (and certainly nowhere near the kind of extravagance he’s currently looking at), he quickly finds himself somewhat unnerved by the whole situation. There are still a few people out of their seats, opening and closing compartments, fiddling with the in-flight entertainment. People in suits and expensive-looking ironed shirts, several of which were whispering animatedly behind him. Nijimura can’t hear a thing they’re saying, but he quickly sits down and stuffs his backpack under the too-large seat in front of him, wishing he’d had brought more luggage to make it less empty.

A slight movement beside him draws his attention, and he realizes for the first time the adjacent seat is occupied.

The man isn’t paying the least bit of attention to anyone. His face, young and unlined (despite the grey hair) as much as his own from what Nijimura could tell, is buried nose-deep in a book. Unlike the rest of the cabin, he’s wearing jeans and a hoodie. It’s pretty much the only thing about him that stands out—though, after a good minute of stealing glances, Nijimura tentatively confirms he isn’t sitting next to some shapeshifting youkai.

He briefly wonders why this man is here, but there could be any number of reasons. It’s not like Akashi had said anything about all the researchers—ha—being on the same flight. For all Nijimura knows, he could be the last one to arrive. He sinks back into his own seat, staring into the blank screen before him, and tries to stop thinking about how much he hates flying.

 

Mayuzumi is, unfortunately, a very light sleeper.

The first round of turbulence wakes him, about three hours in. He’s barely conscious enough to be thankful that he hadn’t already started dreaming about goddamned Nessie before a hot towel comes into his line of sight and reminds him of where he is.

“Thanks.”

His seat mate looks jittery and uncomfortable even as he mouths a _no problem_ back at Mayuzumi. It doesn’t take much to figure out someone has flying anxiety, but this guy has got to be the worst case Mayuzumi has ever seen.

 _Well, none of my business_ , he thinks, as the flight attendant comes by to pick up the towels. He resumes reading, until it becomes apparent that the incessant moving around in the other seat is preventing him from concentrating in any capacity.

“Hey,” he says, a little testily, and the guy turns around. Mayuzumi gets a better look at him this time; his eyes are grey, a little lighter than Mayuzumi’s own. _I’ve seen this guy before_ , he realizes, but words are already coming out of his mouth. “Do you mind not moving around so much? It’s kind of distracting.”

The man purses his lips, and Mayuzumi is reminded of the group photograph he’s seen once in Akashi’s locker more than half a dozen years ago, where he’s making the exact same face. And more recently, as well. A name crawls to the forefront of his mind from the depths of the internet and the two innocuous-seeming clippings Akashi had faxed the team the night before. “Sorry, this is my first time—“

“You’re Nijimura, aren’t you.”

Mayuzumi watched his expression change, sharpen, the traces of fatigue leaving almost entirely. “Are you with Akashi’s team?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.” He makes as if to shake hands, and Mayuzumi stares. “What’s your name?”

“…Mayuzumi.” Gingerly he takes Nijimura’s outstretched hand. It’s bad enough that he’s gotten himself roped into this misadventure in psuedoscience and _twice_ as bad when it’s his high school kouhai who’d somehow persuaded him to hop abroad. All things considered, Nijimura’s name _had_ appeared in a few of his searches, in those parts of the internet less frequented by the public. A truly ragtag group they are, he thinks. “Here.”

“What—?”

“If you’re gonna vomit,” Mayuzumi starts, holding on tightly to the seat as the plane bumped its way through another rough current again. Nijimura stares incredulously at the fancy red-initialed paper bag. The warning sign blinks at them from above to fasten their seat belts, and he can already hear the staticky noise of the intercom starting up. “I’d rather you do it after I finish eating.”

 

They arrive in Edinburgh at four in the afternoon. The itinerary in Nijimura’s hands tells him he isn’t expected in Inverness until the morning after the next, but that he would have to find his own way there.

“As if he doesn’t have enough money to fly us out there too,” Mayuzumi grumbles next to him, and Nijimura silently agrees though his stomach is still churning. They have not moved from the waiting area outside the arrivals hall, where one of the other researchers—Mibuchi, he had introduced himself as—is making calls on a pay phone nearby.

Nijimura finds himself disoriented by jet lag, but also by the accents surrounding him—this is no Los Angeles, to be sure. It looks as if none of his companions had any comparable spoken English skills either; Mibuchi is whispering into the phone in Japanese, Nebuya is dozing off, and Hayama is—somewhere. Mayuzumi is staring, strangely focused, at the glass doors where streams of people enter and leave. As if this were all just some dream.

It’s too late to think it over again, now. Here he is, thousands of miles away from home. It had taken some time to persuade Alex to let him off work for so long (she’d needed less persuasion when his jobs were done closer to home), but at this moment in time she and Himuro are the only two who know he’s gone. His parents do not need any more on their plate to worry about, he’d reasoned. Still, it doesn’t sit well inside him as he watches Mibuchi hang up.

“Well, we can catch the train. There’s one coming around—“ He looks through what seems like a meticulously organized notebook, “—quarter to either, yes. We can get on that one if we hurry.”

“And then what?” Mayuzumi finally pries his eyes from the doors, and Nijimura spots Hayama sauntering back towards them from the direction of the restrooms. “Will the hotel let us stay an extra night? We can just take a bus in the morning.”

Mibuchi continues flipping through the pages without looking at him. “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it? It doesn’t say we all have to arrive together.”

“Whatever.”

Nijimura closes his eyes briefly, trying very hard not to explode or think about the various ways he could possibly get lost were he to simply break off from these people right this moment. Experience had taught him he’d run into strange things very quickly, and here, well—

Already Mayuzumi is standing up beside him, and this time Nijimura follows his gaze. The others are still bickering amongst themselves, entirely ignoring them. He sees a shimmer of movement in the bare pavement outside for the briefest of moments, and then it is gone.

_Airports are liminal spaces._

Mayuzumi turns towards him, and Nijimura can tell he is amused despite the grim smile on his face. “Took you a while. Guess this is why Akashi wants backup, huh.”

Nijimura averts his eyes. “Shut up.”

_Right, maybe this was a mistake._


	2. N | In Sunshine and in Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fixed a contradictory statement in the first chapter, oops...  
> 

Truth be told, this had definitely sounded like a scam when he’d gotten the call.

It had been kind of an accident how Nijimura had gotten himself into this field, a combined result of bad luck and initial excitement overwhelming common sense for long enough before he’d realized perhaps this would not be the best route a promising recent graduate could have made.

After his father’s condition more or less stabilized over his college years, both parents had moved back to Japan. Nijimura had followed after graduating from UCLA to be close to them just in case, had found a halfway decent job at a small construction enterprise. Things had been looking up, however sort of creepy his boss was. Then he’d fucked up by running into Himuro Tatsuya again, at a company party held in the seediest restaurant he’d ever been to.

“Never thought I’d see you here,” Tatsuya had said wryly, as he smashed one of the executives’ heads onto the table that reeked of cheap alcohol.

(Turns out, that nagging feeling at the back of Shuuzou’s head that not everything was right with his company had been correct: most of them had, in fact, been oni in disguise.)

 

 

Later: “I’m not just dreaming this up, right? How do—how did you even…even know these things _exist_?”

Tatsuya shrugged, dusting debris off his shoulder. “I’m surprised you didn’t, considering we spent so much time together that summer.”

“ _Please_ don’t tell me,” Shuuzou groaned, wringing his injured hand. Tatsuya was completely unhurt—the combined result of being in the trade much longer and being half- _mizuchi_. The other half, Shuuzou contended, was probably _smug fucking bastard_ , by the sole fact that he let Shuuzou deal with one of those things all on his own despite it being apparent he had no experience whatsoever in tangling with mythological creatures. Being an ex-delinquent could only take one so far. “What the hell am I going to tell my parents? My boss tried to eat me, so I don’t have a job now?”

“…You’re taking this pretty well, considering.”

 

 

And three-odd years later, here he is. None of his family members ever found out, though his younger siblings probably had an inkling _something_ out of the ordinary had happened, Whether or not they would work up the courage to ask is another matter entirely. (Shuuzou for the matter hopes they never will, but things don’t _ever_ seem to go his way in that department.)

Case in point: they are definitely not going his way now. His backpack seems to be putting on more and more weight the longer he stands, despite what little he has on him—clothes and toiletries, water bottle, unspecified weapons that took the damned longest time to disassemble in a way that would allow him to pass the scanners. The usual.

Beside him, Mayuzumi stifles a yawn. The neon sign of Hotel Donaghue blinks and hisses electric sparks at them; all around, people are shambling away, into pubs and homes, into places that are not meant for either of them. The city is smaller than he’d thought it to be, more personal, and daunting in the dark of night. Summer is here, but it is entirely different from summer in Tokyo. The wind nips gently as his face as they approach, swirling dust underneath the streetlights.

In a place as timeless as this it is hard to not think about the magic hiding underneath. He shakes his head; it’s too early to hunt, to start wandering.

“So you met Akashi in high school, huh.”

“Mm.” They walk in together. Shuuzou doesn’t know what’s up with this guy—his dull, somewhat creepy expression notwithstanding, it was clear Mayuzumi doesn’t really want to be here at all. It almost makes him wish he were alone.

The others had gone on ahead on a night bus. Now that his mind is a little clearer he thinks he ought’ve gone with them, though as always it’s too late now. Shuuzou pays for a double for a night, only because Mayuzumi either can’t speak English or is expertly hiding his ability to do so from him. By the way he’s blinking slowly at the placards before him, Shuuzou’s inclined to believe it’s the latter.

The rates are more expensive than he’d thought, for a place like this. He vaguely recalls something about declared expenses on the forms Akashi had sent. Well—

“Don’t even think about it,” Mayuzumi says glumly, as they squeeze into the rickety old elevator. Clearly whoever designed it had been pushing the definitions of ‘accommodates up to four people.’ “This is probably some kind of test. Again.”

Shuuzou frowns. “You make it sound like he’s thrown people out onto the streets before.”

There’s a soft _ding!_ as the doors creak open, and Mayuzumi stares at the discolored carpet spread out before him in distaste. A faint smell of stale tobacco permeates the hallways, staining the walls a murky sort of brown. “And still it wouldn’t surprise you, would it?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Shuuzou mutters, swiping the card key with a little more force than intended.

 

He calls Tatsuya as soon as Mayuzumi steps into the shower, pleasantly surprised by the fact that international calls _actually_ go through in this dilapidated establishment. Shuuzou hears a click, and then yawning. “Shuu?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Just wanted to let someone know I’m still alive.”

“I’m touched you thought of me first.” Shuuzou can hear him smile through the phone. “Alex’s told your parents you’re gone on a business trip. Not really lying if it’s true, huh?”

He heaves a sigh. “I guess. It won’t…be for too long, I hope.”

“Two months, you said.”

“Hopefully less.” Shuuzou eyes the papers sprawled all over the bedside desk, his own unintelligible scribbles making up half of what he can see. It all boils down to the fact that the objective of this mission is something of the magnitude that he’s never taken down before. Something that is by all accounts—well. He pushes that thought away; it wasn’t as if _that’d_ stop anyone like Akashi Seijuurou. “Shit, don’t you ever feel like you got roped into something you have no idea about?”

“Shouldn’t you have come to this conclusion earlier?”

“Yeah, but.” Then, after playing Tatsuya’s words in his head one more time, “Wait, are you telling me _you_ didn’t think this was real either? Like, there are loads of people out there who do this professionally. Why me?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Tatsuya—“

“I’ve never met Akashi before, but _you_ have, Shuu. There’s probably a good reason why you’re there.”The staticky crackling coming from the other side does not bode well for the connection. He can already hear Mayuzumi moving around in the bathroom, presumably done with his shower. “Besides, how could you say no to a trip like this? There’s so much out there you haven't seen.”

“You know how much I hate flying.”

“Exactly.”

“…Sometimes I hate you.” Shuuzou turns around to grab his change of clothes, and jumps when he realizes Mayuzumi is already sitting at the foot of the bed. “When the hell did you get out of the shower?”

“Someone else staying with you?”

“Yeah, just.” Mayuzumi isn’t paying the least bit of attention to him. _Fine_. Still, he switches to English just in case. “Someone else from the team. Look, I’ll call you back later. Still gotta find a way to go up north tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Tatsuya says. He doesn’t sound entirely convinced, but Shuuzou could chalk that up to the shitty connection making him overthink things. Yeah, that must be it. “And watch out for faeries, yeah? Good luck.”

“At least I know those are real,” Shuuzou replies. “Thanks.”

When he comes out of the shower later, Mayuzumi is already fast asleep. He takes it to mean there aren’t any pixies darting around their room—though it doesn’t stop him from checking.

It’s no secret he’s abysmally insensitive to ghosts and the like for someone who hunts supernatural creepy-crawlies for a living. He follows leads that are sometimes nothing more than scraps of dubious information from the local library and online forums, but really, what else is he supposed to do? Though they’d teamed up for a few jobs after The Incident, as Shuuzou’d come to call it, Tatsuya is busy more often than not helping front Alex’s business full-time.

(Both of them know it wasn’t _really_ Tatsuya’s fault that he’d ended up without a job in the first place. But Tatsuya, being him, had seemed to take it onto himself to push as many hunting stints as he could to Shuuzou as an apology. It would’ve been better if they hadn’t involved Shuuzou coming close to spontaneously combusting or falling down waterfalls or getting trapped in moving hedges for nine hours. But hey, he’s still alive, and that’s gotta count for something.)

It’s kind of funny, Shuuzou reflects as he settles into bed. He’d come in part because he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life being indebted to Tatsuya (or anyone else, for that matter), but what would that make him and Akashi?

“I don’t suppose our professions actually overlap,” he murmurs at Mayuzumi’s prone figure beneath the covers. He’d only gleaned as much as he’s asked—that Mayuzumi and Akashi somehow knew each other from school—and Mayuzumi’s name had never turned up in any search he’s made before. There had to be another reason why Akashi had persuaded him to come along, unless all he is here for is… “Ah?”

“He’s like that,” Mayuzumi says suddenly, into the pillow. Shuuzou stares at him until he realizes Mayuzumi’s eyes are still closed as he shifts in sleep. “Fucking Akashi…”

Well. Shuuzou pulls the covers over his face, deciding that the best course of action would be to give in to jet-lag. He just hopes Mayuzumi doesn’t snore.

_…Definitely overthinking this._

 

 

Daylight hits him full-force in the form of Mayuzumi shoving aside the heavy floral curtains next to his face.

Shuuzou blinks blearily at the clock on the desk: 6:58. “Wha—“

“Bus leaving at 8,” Mayuzumi says, as if it is imperative Shuuzou leaves with him. That, he thinks as he sits up in bed slowly, is entirely too reminiscent of _someone_. “I’m taking the bathroom first.”

He finds his own bed in complete disarray, with half of the sheets pooling on the floor. Shuuzou finds some solace in the fact that Mayuzumi’s bed looks equally as disorganized, yet he can’t help but wonder what it was that had set him off so in slumber. Usually he is a neat sleeper—after a few tries at remembering if he’d dreamt any last night, he chalks it up to being in a foreign country.

But it’s a good day outside. The light reflects off aging rooftops in the colors of burnt ochre and steel grey. A single pigeon flies by; the city is waking up, inch by inch.

Neither of them have packed to match the duration of the trip, as Akashi had confirmed to each about providing the necessities of clothing and such. Already he feels much better after a somewhat decent bit of shuteye, though Shuuzou can still feel the lingering effects of jet-lag as they depart for the Royal Mile. At least, if he passes out, he’d be slumping into a seat instead of the curb…

There’s already a small line forming on the sidewalk where the glass-fronted office of Atlantic Tours sits gleaming. Mayuzumi pulls out a pamphlet, ostensibly taken from the front desk of the hotel, and flips it at Shuuzou. “Here.”

“ _This guided one-day tour_ …” He looks up, pursing his lips. “Hey, um, do we really have time for this?”

“Suit yourself,” Mayuzumi says, but he’s already on the steps of the bus, and Shuuzou can’t do much more than hop on after him.

As the bus glides down the road, Shuuzou can see Edinburgh Castle in the distance, golden and ancient and bathed in sunlight. He pats his wallet—though the price is lower than if they’d taken the train directly, he knows how cheap the direct buses can be from yesterday's glance at the boards at the station. From what he'd observed about Mayuzumi so far, it already seems inconceivable that he would enjoy this sort of thing. Shuuzou doesn’t know how Mayuzumi knows about this tour—doesn’t _want_ to know, really. It’s his last day to relax before things _really_ go wild.

“Hey,” he says, weighing that thought against how much he wants to start an actual conversation, “You could’ve just left me sleeping back there. Why didn’t you?”

Mayuzumi doesn’t look at him as he sinks back into the seat. Someone outside is playing a shitty bagpipe rendition of “Greensleeves” as they reach the highway exit; Shuuzou cranes his neck for the perpetrator, but already the music is in the distance. “Does it really matter if we’re both gonna end up there, anyway.”

 _That’s not what you said yesterday_ , Shuuzou thinks, but he doesn’t say any more, instead opting to listen to the guide ramble on about haunted wayside taverns. Perhaps there’s a bit of truth in that he could come back to investigate once everything is said and done, up north. Up where Akashi is waiting for them.

Would it have killed him to tell Shuuzou everything outright when he’d first come asking? Of course, everything Akashi does, he does for a very good reason. Shuuzou knows better than to pose that question to anyone but himself—and sometimes, not even that. There is a kind of truth in the implicit that doesn't warrant questioning, and he's learned as much through his years of being on the job.

It already seems significantly gloomier as they leave the city, the sun only peeking out slightly behind a curtain of uniform grey. Shuuzou’s stomach makes an uncomfortable sound, reminding him of its emptiness.

The pamphlet says four hours until lunch. Four hours and numerous rainclouds away, and maybe by then he’ll figure out what kind of _looking forward_ Akashi had meant to imply in his message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes;  
> \- mizuchi: a type of japanese dragon or legendary serpent-like creature, either found in aquatic habitat or otherwise connected to water ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuchi))  
> \- if you're wondering where akashi is!! he should appear in the next chapter 8). anyway its not like he's not constantly on niji's mind here (coughs)


	3. M | From the Torrent or the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mayuzumi ponders on the meaning of very shitty weather

Chihiro does not go anywhere without a book, and especially so on long journeys like this.

He had wanted to bring his entire collection of _Clockwork Apple_ , but eight books would have been much too heavy a space to occupy in his luggage. Akashi had offhandedly mentioned bringing along English novels instead, to better his language skills. Chihiro had balked at that, and yet translations of _Asleep_ and _Norwegian Wood_ sit in his bag against his leg, as well as one lonely volume of his favorite light novel.

In the seat beside him, Nijimura is asleep.

He has been asleep since Stirling, the city with its castle looming in the distance, watching them solemnly as they passed by. Nijimura's face is pressed against the window despite the bumpy road, serene amid the thin cries of a child up front and occasional overexcited comment from the guide. Chihiro is somewhat envious and annoyed all at once; _he_ would never be able to sleep like this. And curious, that a hunter would have a habit of sleeping in such a careless fashion—unless, of course, he’s perfectly secure in his own capabilities.

The clouds outside match his own hair perfectly, Chihiro is somewhat amused to notice. One can’t escape rain around these parts. It starts to fall slowly, pinprick-sized dots of moisture on the window, then needles, then sheets. Villages rush by, smaller and sparser as they trundle on through the storm, until they are in the open once more.

Nijimura’s arm slides down as the bus rounds a bend, brushing against his. Chihiro frowns; he can feel the callouses, trophies of some hard-earned battle, or perhaps simply a sport of some kind. He pulls away.

“Now, this place,” the tour guide says, “Glencoe, it’s beautiful on a sunny day. You can see the valley for miles—well, now you can get a different flavor out of it, in this rain.”

 _It’s more suited for rain,_ Chihiro thinks.

They stop along the road, with the guide announcing a brief stop for photos. Chihiro looks around; most of the others seem reluctant to leave the dry confines of the bus. He pauses at Nijimura stirring beside him, and then decides very helpfully to ignore him.

“—Are we there?”

“No,” Chihiro says, even as he’s walking down the aisle. There’s a lull in the rain now, and he isn’t going to let this opportunity go to waste. _Think of all the inspiration you can get_ , he tells himself, as if the weather is already somehow part of him.

It is, strictly speaking, not entirely untrue.

Nijimura follows him, somewhat hesitantly, out onto the muddy grass. Myriad greens and browns and dampened gold, cut by jagged paths, leading into nowhere up the mountains obscured by mist. He looks up regardless, squinting as thin raindrops pat into his face. Behind him, a couple more people trickle tentatively down the bus, spreading out as the braver souls extract their cameras from inside their coats. Their presence is almost unnatural, brightly colored raincoats and umbrellas and windbreakers against the vast emptiness of the land.

He snaps a quick photo of the highest peak that he can make out, hoping his shitty camera would at least be able to capture _something_. Chihiro shivers some as he shoves it back into his light jacket, wrapping it tighter around himself. There is no reason for the weather to be this chilly or wet on what seemed like a nice summer day, but evidently the wind howling down from the glen does not agree. It reminds him, almost, of a song—

( _“You have a beautiful voice,”_ Akashi had told him, years ago, on that rooftop lost in the fog of his mind. His eyes had seemed softer for a moment, forlorn, _different_ , but memories are tricky things.)

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Nijimura murmurs, the wind whipping the words out of his mouth, whirling it between Chihiro’s ears before taking it high into the mountains. In his memory, they had been black. “I wonder what’s hiding up there. Don’t you wonder about that?”

Once Chihiro had read a book about Chinese ghosts, and their increased activity in rain; all water runs to the underworld, making it easier to bridge that world to this one. Here, across oceans and continents, most faeries infinitely prefer the water already present. “Not really.”

Nijimura blinks. From where he stands, Chihiro can’t tell if he’s nonplussed, or if it’s simply the rainwater doing its work. “Alright.”

What Chihiro _can_ tell there is there are more questions behind that, such as _Are you actually interested in_ anything _at all?_ or _What the hell’s your problem, really?_ Sentiments to which he is not entirely undeserving. It’s not like he gives a fuck—despite the nagging feeling at the back of his mind that Akashi is most definitely going to make him pretend otherwise for two months. Not pretend, _be_.

The damp pamphlet in Chihiro’s jacket proclaims that when they take the bus back this way again, back to Edinburgh, the hills will be a sea of soft lilac. The thought rolls around in his mind as they re-board the bus at the beckoning of flashing lights, back into the familiar metal and plastic, insulated against the wild. Flower motifs had been a big part of a British literature course he’d taken in college, though he never got much out of it other than being exposed to entire genres of literature he cares little about.

Heather is wild and hardy, too romantic for his tastes. He’d rather have the dandelions by the road.

Nijimura sneezes, and it’s only now that Chihiro really deigns to look at him and realizes he doesn’t even have a jacket on. He rolls his eyes discreetly and throws a pack of tissue at his seat-mate. “Don’t give me your cold.”

“So you’re not completely heartless,” Nijimura snorts, ripping the packaging open. “Thanks, I guess.”

“…You _really_ better not get me sick.” _Otherwise we’d both be useless to Akashi, and nobody wants that_ , he wants to add, but Nijimura is already busying himself with trying to not blow his guts out into the tissue.

 

 

 

“So that was interesting,” Nijimura says a couple hours later, as they step off the bus again, this time on to thankfully dry ground. Urquhart Castle sits in ruins in the not-so-far distance, grey and gloomy. Tourists paddle to and fro between the remains of its stone battlements and burnt halls, examining each upturned rock for some clue of the past. More of them still are holding binoculars and scanning across the lake. “But how are we gonna get to Inverness?”

“There ought to be a bus that runs here,” Chihiro answers absentmindedly, his entire attention absorbed by the expanse of water before him. It is simple, really: somehow, somewhere along the way, Akashi had found out about his predicament. This trip, then, is some sort of divine punishment. “I’ll figure it out.”

“…That’s shorthand for ‘I have no idea’, isn’t it.”

“You tell me a better way, then.”

“So much for figuring it out,” he can hear Nijimura mutter as he moves off elsewhere—exploring the castle? Going to the restroom? Chihiro finds himself caring even less, at this point. He ducks into the gift shop, heading straight for the cafe (lunch had been a pie that didn’t quite fill him up.) Chihiro has no use for glittery trinkets of a cartoonized Nessie or faux-ancient maps of Scotland (where is he gonna hang that? Over his beloved posters of Kaguya-tan? No fucking way.)

He stops near a counter of handmade candles upon seeing the cafe and, after a second of thought, slides discreetly behind said counter. Perhaps he is not yet awake after all, because he’s watching Nebuya wolf down three sandwiches at once from where he stands. A waitress giggles as she comes by to take away his plate, and they start having a pleasantly animated conversation about—if Chihiro’s ears are still properly working—WWE.

 _What_.

Maybe there had been a mistake on the itinerary, and they _were_ supposed to show up here today. Or maybe it’s just pre-session surveying. Whatever the case, and despite the fact that none of the other researchers he’d traveled with seemed to know each other that well, Chihiro finds himself quickly disappearing into the restroom in case there are more of them around.

In case _Akashi_ is around. He’s not quite sure if he’s ready for that yet.

…Which is ridiculous, Chihiro thinks as he closes the stall door behind him. There is nothing to be apprehensive of. He sits on the porcelain seat, reevaluating his next moves as he hugs his backpack to his chest.

Someone flushes in the stall next to his. “You think Akashi’s arrived yet?”

“He said he’d be down there looking at the castle first,” drawls Mibuchi by the sink. Chihiro feels somewhat faint, like he’s going to topple face-first into the garbage bin any moment. “If I’d known Sei-chan any better, I’d say he’s pretty excited.”

“Huh.”

Chihiro waits until both of them are definitively out of the room before emerging from his stall. His reflection in the mirror seems sallow and unappreciative—which is not what he’s _trying_ to be, as futile as those attempts were. He had come out of his own free will, anyway…

He throws water on his face. The door opens again behind him; this time he does not look away. “What, did I scare you?”

“Don’t start,” Nijimura tells him, visibly annoyed. Then, “I saw Akashi. He’s looking for you.”

 

 

 

Akashi has not changed one single bit.

Or rather, Chihiro’s perception of him has not changed. A little taller now (he's still taller than Akashi, he’s happy to note, but then Nijimura has at least five centimeters on _him_ ), and that’s about it for physical transformations. Chihiro supposes he just has one of those faces that’ll stay youthful forever—whether or not that’s a good thing depends on how one looks at it.

(He wonders if he can still get away with calling Akashi a brat, then decides he doesn’t have that much of a death wish.)

“Ah,” Akashi says, smiling at the pair as they come down the path. Chihiro doesn’t see any of the others; presumably they’ve already gotten their dose of orientational torture from the boss of this expedition. There is something about the way he’s honing in on them that sets Chihiro on edge. Other people have high school memories of exams and playing truant, graduation trips and cherry blossoms. He has Akashi’s sharp gaze and triumphant smile, and he isn’t sure what he’d trade that for. “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Chihiro.”

“Yeah, um.” He averts his eyes, and sees that Nijimura seems to be busy deciphering their exchange. The evening sun throws pinks and golds across the water behind Akashi, and the deep blue mountains beyond. There’s something here, alright. It would make a nice backdrop for a story about an alien invasion, the waves crashing against the vast shoreline as lights twinkle and whirl—but Chihiro isn’t paid to be here to _write_. He blinks. “Didn’t…think I’d see you so soon, either, Akashi.”

“The locals said it would be pleasant to take a stroll around.” Akashi motions for them to walk, and Chihiro almost trips over his own feet. Thankfully neither of the other two seem to notice—or care. “Before the work starts, of course. I did not think I would see both of you today, but perhaps it makes things easier.”

“The campsite,” Nijimura says, immediately. Akashi gives him a curious look, and he points at the tents all the way across. In the dying light they almost seem to glow, a cluster of still-burning charcoal against a gently sloping hillside. There’s some sort of flag flapping against the wind on a stake outside, but it is too far for Chihiro to tell what it says. “Is that where we’ll be staying at?”

It’s a strange first thing to ask, until Chihiro remembers they’d already talked before Nijimura came to find him.

“That’s the Shuutoku team.” Akashi reaches into his briefcase—an actual adult briefcase, Chihiro notes, patent leather and embossed with the corporate logo—and pulls out a folder. The word _laboratory_ jumps out at Chihiro, bold and capitalized, and he feels a whisper of goosebumps across his skin. “We are not the only researchers here. It’s been quite publicized, as much as events like these can be. As is normal for larger objectives; you would know that…Nijimura-san.”

“I guess, yeah.” There’s something vaguely discontented about the way Nijimura bites his lip and pulls at the straps of his backpack, as if he’s finally figured out this isn’t exactly the kind of trip either of them signed up for. _No_ , Chihiro thinks as he pushes back against the taste of bile at the back of his throat, chafing at names uncalled. Akashi is looking at both of them, and at the same time he is not. _That’s been figured out for us long ago._ “Right. Competition.”

A caretaker brushes past them, walking up the steps two at a time, and turns the open sign around at the door. Two children race past them towards the parking lot, and Nijimura's expression softens just a little. It suits his face as much as the frown Chihiro had seen online, pixellated as it were. “Everything closes early here.”

“Knowing what is here, I would not blame them,” Akashi replies.

(This time, Chihiro finds it exceedingly hard to ignore the glint of sunset in his eyes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _norwegian wood_ is by haruki murakami and _asleep_ by banana yoshimoto. despite the contents of those books this is not a love triangle and (probably) nobody’s going to die.
> 
> mayuzumi for most awkward and vaguely bitter for no reason piece of shit in the world  
>  _actual_ appearances by monsters/mythological creatures/things to hunt coming up soon, stay tuned \\(:v)/


	4. N | This Window Open to the Night

Shuuzou wakes up at dawn the next morning, hands sinking into the soft material of his bed. It’s an entirely foreign feeling—and smell, for that matter. Something floral.

He slaps at his watch on the nightstand. There’s only the slightest hint of sunlight filtering in from the curtains (which look and feel much better than the ones from last night), but he does not feel sleepy at all.

Quite the contrary.

Akashi had given him a set of keys, he remembers vaguely as he sits up, eyeing his backpack and trying to remember where he’d put them last night. His head hurts, and his back still aches like hell from an entire day of flying and an entire day of sitting his ass on a shitty bus seat. It’s all Mayuzumi’s fault, anyway—Shuuzou looks to the other side of the bed before realizing there’s nobody there. Although, he can’t even remember if he fell asleep alone or not.

“I was planning on a welcome party for tomorrow,” Akashi had told them the night before, as they arrived at the mansion by the far side of the lake that would serve as their operating grounds for the next two months. By then Shuuzou had already heard from Hayama that the Akashi family apparently had acquired this place some years ago—something about his mother being distantly related to local nobility. It should not have come as a surprise to him, and yet. “But I suppose nobody would mind having it earlier.”

Shuuzou had, through the course of last night, downed way too many drinks at the behest of his fellow—colleagues? Way, _way_ too many. He grabs his water bottle as he slips off the bed, cursing its emptiness. _You_ know _you can’t hold any alcohol for shit_ , he could almost hear Tatsuya’s chastising voice inside his head.

His watch blinks 4:59am in neon green. Sighing, he tucks the satin bedsheets back into place, making sure it’s at least somewhat smooth. A quick rummage through the closet reveals two tailored suits and some towels; he grabs the first thing he sees from the dresser and tosses it on. All he wants right now is something to kick the ringing in his head for good, not a fashion makeover.

Shuuzou opens the door to a long hallway, still dark with the curtains drawn around the windows at either end. He could faintly make out several ornate paintings on the walls. Everything looks appropriately dated; someone (was it Mibuchi?) last night had started sprouting architectural nonsense about Georgian or Edwardian or whatever style this house was built in. Whatever the case, he’s not sure he wants to hang out around gilded portraits of Akashi’s forebears for too long in this state.

“I wonder where the kitchen is…”

In any other situation, perhaps he might’ve held off the alcohol—as he usually did, back home. _This,_ however, calls for a radical change in behavior, and Shuuzou isn’t sure if he would’ve been able to hold a conversation otherwise. As awful as it is to say. At least if he did anything stupid yesterday, he can’t recall any of it. The only thing he distinctly _does_ remember is there being more people present than he’d thought. But Akashi had always had his ways of gathering a crowd.

His feet make little noise on the thick carpeting as he finds his way down the hall, turning right for the staircase winding down below. There is no sign of anyone else as he wanders his way into the grand hall. Its interiors are sparkling clean with no sign of last night’s festivities; Shuuzou stops to stare at the crystal chandeliers (dangerous, he thinks) suspended a couple feet above his head. Fascinating as it is, he’s getting a little dizzy. It occurs to him then that he might’ve been better off looking for a bathroom, but well, here he is.

And he can sort of, almost, smell waffles. He follows the phantom scent down the length of the room, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the walls. The curtains are already opened here, letting in the growing light. Something glints above his head; reflections off the chandeliers, perhaps. He looks up, and is immediately absorbed by the portrait hanging above the other entrance.

(As to why he hadn’t noticed it—or anything else, really—last night, Shuuzou chalks it up to the margaritas.)

The woman smiles down at him from behind a parasol, white lace on pale yellow. Her eyes are gentle and vaguely wistful—behind her, rolling hills of lavender stretch far and wide. It is no surprise to find something so exquisite in this house, but Shuuzou finds himself entranced still. There is something all too intriguing that keeps him rooted to the spot, waiting for the sun outside to fully unfurl, paint its light across the portrait—

_Tap, tap._

“Who?”

Surely it couldn’t be a dream; Shuuzou had definitely heard the tapping, saw the split second of shadow by the window outside. He runs towards it, catching a faint glimpse of something bounding into the forest. Pressing his face against the glass, he could see something with…antlers?

“…Oh.”

So it’s not uncommon to see deer around. Somewhat relieved, he makes his way back towards his original destination. The near-scare _had_ woken him up a little more ( _stupid_ , he tells himself, getting spooked by a fucking _deer_ ), but not to the point where a glass of water wouldn’t help.

The kitchen is appropriately large for the mansion; really, Shuuzou suspects there to be more than one. Someone had already put a kettle on the stove, which hums pleasantly at him as he enters. Probably one of the helpers—he grabs a cup and heads towards the sink, letting the water run until the cup is half-full. Then he turns towards the variety of pots and pans hung above his head, sniffing the air.

There’s _definitely_ someone eating waffles.

“Uh, is anyone—“

Someone taps him on the shoulder.

“Make your own damn waffles,” Mayuzumi says, but not before he gets a glassful of water to his face.

 

 

 

“I see you’ve both now well-acquainted with the kitchens,” Akashi tells them pleasantly.

“If you want to put it that way,” Shuuzou replies, watching the rest of the team eat on the other side of the dining table. The bulk of last night’s guests had departed somewhere around midnight back to their respective campsites. Next to him, Mayuzumi stabs at a waffle with more vigor than Shuuzou has seen him ever possess. There’s a waffle on Shuuzou’s plate too; misshapen as it is, it’s still a sort of token of goodwill. Maybe. “I—sorry about that. Last night was kind of…”

“A little too much?” Akashi provides helpfully, while Mayuzumi interjects with “You were _so_ fucking drunk.”

“…Yeah, well.” Like he’s one to talk; Mayuzumi definitely had dark circles under _his_ eyes when Shuuzou’d walked into him surreptitiously emptying Akashi’s larders. “This doesn’t happen all the time.”

“I suppose getting it out of the way early was a good idea then,” Akashi says, standing up. He doesn’t seem annoyed, but then again—Shuuzou had seen _that_ look before, the split second of hunger in his eyes that has nothing to do with food. “We’ll need all senses intact for what we’re about to do next. Don’t we?”

 

 

 

Shuuzou discovers several facts over the course of the next three hours: that Hayama and Nebuya are biologists, that Mibuchi is a folklorist specializing in the British Isles, and that the Akashi Corporation actually has a _huge_ influence on the aquaculture industry.

“He wants to build a fucking _salmon farm_ ,” Mayuzumi mutters incredulously as he shuffles behind Shuuzou, making up the rear of the group as they walk past the perimeters of the estate and down towards the actual lake. “A _sustainable_ salmon farm. Is that really the best cover he can come up with?”

Shuuzou shrugs. “I’ve heard worse.”

(He briefly wonders if it’s at all possible to buy the lake—despite the fact that ordinary people can’t just up and purchase an entire geological feature in a foreign country, Akashi Seijuurou is not an ordinary person.)

“You’d think Akashi would have more locals on the team,” Hayama is saying up front. Or shouting—he seems overly excited for what amounts to them doing pretty much nothing (“Get acquainted with the natural landscape first,” Akashi had told them before he’d disappeared into his study again for a conference.) “Unless they’re all scared to death or something. Oi, Mayuzumi-san—”

“What.”

Hayama squints at him, as if studying some exotic specimen of beetle. “I mean, you look kinda…I mean, at some angles—”

“Kou-chan, that’s rude.” Mibuchi cuts him off as Mayuzumi’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Anyway, I wouldn’t count on most people being too happy about what we’re doing, if they know.”

It’s a good point. Shuuzou had run into obstructive locals before, especially in the countryside. He doesn’t blame them; there _are_ things that simply become worse if exposed to outsiders. Creatures that don’t become hostile until someone comes knocking for their hides. But he also has to eat, and balancing that could get tricky.

That, and he’s sure Nessie— _if they find her_ —isn’t the only thing he’ll have to worry about on this trip.

“So,” Shuuzou begins, fiddling with his armband, “Have any of you done this sort of thing before? Hunting?”

Nebuya scratches an ear. “Hunting, huh? Nothing so big. Went shooting sika a couple years back—there’s some around, aren’t there?”

Mibuchi elbows him. “That’s not what he was asking.”

“Eh, same thing,” Hayama winks at Shuuzou, stretching his limbs. “We’re _scientists_ , remember. This is a completely scientific endeavor.”

“Do you even know what that _means_.”

“Shut up, Nebuya.”

 

 

 

It's a surprise that Mayuzumi even wants to eat with them, Shuuzou thinks, and even more when he initiates a conversation. 

“Was he like that in middle school?”

“Like what?”

Mayuzumi indicates towards the empty seat at the head of the table. There is no placard there, unlike the rest of the seats that had been reserved for them. Hayama and Nebuya are having a whispered argument down the other side of the table over plate sizes. “That.”

Akashi had always eaten with everyone else in middle school. With his basketball team, or with the other student council members if there was something going on. Never alone, although at times he seemed to zone out during those noontime conversations over nothing. Times when Shuuzou could detect a hint of fatigue in his eyes, though Akashi himself had never completely given in to any of that in front of anyone else.

Of course, Shuuzou had mostly sat with his own classmates. “I didn’t keep tabs on him like that.”

Mayuzumi blinks at him, slowly. “Are you insinuating I did?”

“Well, yeah, if you’re gonna ask me that question.” Shuuzou has no idea how Akashi had ever gotten involved with Mayuzumi, confounding and irritating as he is to talk to. But it _is_ weird that Akashi had excused himself so early for the night—almost as if he didn’t want to be actively involved in their progress. He looks down at his half-eaten chicken, bones laid haphazardly on one side of the plate. “…I’m assuming he wasn’t, when you knew him.”

There’s something about the way Mayuzumi shifts uncomfortably, the way his face contracts for a split second that reminds Shuuzou of what Hayama had said earlier. What he _hadn’t_ said: the unusually pale face, eyes that sometimes stared at nothing, sharp cheekbones that stood out among the group. His grip tightens on the chair. “I didn’t know him that well.”

 _Alright then, if you want to keep hiding it from me._ He makes a mental note to call Tatsuya later.

“I’m going to find Akashi,” Shuuzou announces to the room, placing his fork down just as Mibuchi re-enters the room with a dangerously wobbling soufflé, trailed by an anxious-looking serving boy. Nebuya glances at him momentarily and shrugs. Nobody else says anything. “Be back in a bit.”

 

 

 

Akashi’s study is at the very end of the hall, and the door is ajar.

“Akashi? Can I come in?”

It still unnerves him, now that they are grown, the sort of social distance between them. Shuuzou isn’t sure whether he should knock, or wait for Akashi to call on him, or—

“Nijimura-san?”

Akashi opens the door himself, curious, and Shuuzou lets himself in before he could think about closing it. There room is surprisingly cozy—the predicted bookshelves, mahogany desk and chair, rugs on the floor, maps hanging all over the walls. A buck’s head rears up elegantly over the stone fireplace, its glassy eyes fixated on the hanging lights above.

Something that looks suspiciously like a shrunken head sits in one of the glass cases, next to a polished sake bottle. The rumors, then, were true; even detached from their original owners, Akashi’s collection of supernatural knickknacks is making even Shuuzou slightly uncomfortable. Akashi, for his part, seems perfectly fine. “Don’t they affect you?”

The redhead glances at the cabinets dismissively. “I don’t have what you have, unfortunately.”

“Oh.” Perhaps he should warn Mayuzumi then, if he feels so inclined to later. The statement is something of a surprise to Shuuzou, but then he hadn’t ever talked to Akashi about this part of his life, up until now. Which brings him to what he wants to say. “Uh, look, I think…we should talk about this. Me being here, the hunt.”

Akashi indicates for him to sit, and he does. The dim lights cast shadows across his face that seem to age him—he looks _tired_. “Yes. Well, it is about time we did that. I apologize for missing dinner tonight, there were some complications with the remaining crew I had to sort out.”

“…Visa problems?” _Did they get eaten along the way?_

“Not quite. Anyway, it does not matter. They will be here next week.” Akashi pushes aside his work, folders stacked almost as tall as he is. Shuuzou watches him expectantly, elbows brushing the dark wood of the desk. This time, Akashi’s smile is softer. “It’s good to see you again, Nijimura-san. You wanted to ask _why_ you are here?”

“More or less. Mayuzumi—” Does it really matter what Mayuzumi had said? He pauses. “This is a research…excavation… _thing_. That’s what everyone else thinks, isn’t it? So.“

“Why not bring more people like you, is that correct? Or are you asking how I found out about your job in the first place?”

Shuuzou purses his lips contemplatively. “Still reading minds, I see.”

“I don’t have to when I’ve known you for as long as I have,” Akashi says lightly, drumming his fingers along the edge of the table. _Pat-a-pat-a-pat_. Outside, it seems, the rain was not about to let them off so easily. “It is not so easy tracking down people who don’t want to be tracked. But _you’ve_ made something of a name for yourself in that circle, haven’t you, Nijimura-san? The _basan_ you caught last year was sold to a colleague of mine.

“In any case, I thought it more prudent to ask someone I already know.”

The payment Shuuzou had seen quoted had looked more like _bribing_ than _asking_. He remembers well the hunt Akashi had described to him, especially the burns on his shoulder that'd made Tatsuya strong-arm him into the hospital afterwards. But he remembers also the warm feeling inside, despite his injuries, at that successful large hunt without Tatsuya's help—and in the end, he’s here for more than just the money. Which is _exactly_ what Akashi wants. A wry smile flits across his face as he leans forward. “Fair enough. Can I ask something though, Akashi?”

“Yes?”

“You could really stop addressing me so formally.”

 

 

 

When he returns to his room Shuuzou finds Mayuzumi already curled up in the covers, a book resting on his face. With some amusement he picks it up and sets it aside—the cover reads _Asleep_. It seems like the howling winds outside have done nothing to stop him from doing so. He wonders momentarily how many rooms this place actually has—or rather, how many people Akashi had hired—that they have to share a bed together, but this time he thinks this with a little less chagrin. Mayuzumi isn't so bad when he's unconscious.

The curtains are open. Shuuzou pulls at them, looking down as he does so.

“Huh.”

Against the flurry of weather outside he could just barely make out the shape of a stag, standing still at the very far end of the property, almost at the water’s edge. He wonders what it’s doing out there—surely it would not be wanting a drink in this weather.

He keeps looking. The stag does not move.

“Okay, that’s fucking weird.” Shuuzou closes the curtains, racking his mind for what he’s read before about Scottish wildlife (which admittedly isn’t much.) Kelpies and water bulls don’t have antlers from what he remembers, but he could be completely wrong. When Shuuzou peeks out the window again, the stag is gone.

“Hey,” he turns and murmurs to Mayuzumi’s prone form, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Nessie turned out to be someone's lost farm animal.”

Mayuzumi doesn’t say anything. _Just as well,_ Shuuzou thinks as he grabs a towel. _That would be_ really _disappointing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A _basan_ is a fire-breathing chicken. [Seriously.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basan)


	5. M | And My Soul was a Stagnant Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayuzumi makes a grisly discovery.

Chihiro climbs up the largest rock along this bend of the jagged shore, the wind whipping across his face as he ascends. When he reaches the top, the mountains are already there waiting for him. It’s a much sunnier day than any in the past week, the lake glittering deep blue. If he focuses enough, he could just about make out Akashi’s boat slowly moving towards the far side.

“See anything weird up there?”

“No,” he calls down to Nijimura, who’s carrying all the mapping equipment, among other things. It’s true Chihiro can’t sense anything out of the ordinary up here, or see anything particularly resembling a supposed Jurassic-era aquatic reptile. _If that’s even what Nessie really looks like._ “Even if I do, how are you gonna kill it?”

“Hey, Akashi doesn’t want it dead.”

“What does he want to do with it then, stick it in a zoo?”

Nijimura doesn’t answer him. Chihiro climbs down the rock, careful to not slip again (he’d pointedly ignored the other’s snickers when it had happened.) Almost two weeks have passed since they’ve arrived, and most of what had transpired had just been mapping out the surrounding sites while looking for anything out of the ordinary. Today is the last leg of that part. Which, in Akashi’s words, meant dropping him and Nijimura off at the furthest point of the lake away from their base. When the real hunt begins, they would switch up with other team members, but for now Chihiro is stuck here.

(He’s not wholly convinced of what will happen _if_ anything tries to snack on them. Though as much as he’s still unsure of Nijimura, he supposes he has a better chance at surviving with an actual hunter around.)

Nijimura is already busy studying markings on a nearby tree when he reaches the ground. “I kinda doubt Nessie’s a beaver.”

“Beavers don’t make markings this high.”

The abrasions are almost a foot taller than either of them; Chihiro is no biologist, but he too could see it would’ve been impossible for that to be true. He follows Nijimura as they make their way through the trees, only half-listening to the rustle of leaves and wind above their heads. And mosquitoes. It’s sort of a wonder there are any mosquitoes around at this altitude.

(Otherwise, the forest is very quiet.)

“Careful,” Nijimura says, maneuvering himself away from a fallen log, “Akashi said there was a pretty big earthquake earlier yesterday, when we were on the boat. Could be some landslides happened.”

Instead of answering, he keeps his eyes trained on the wristband Nijimura’s wearing—it’s a garish rainbow, though somewhat faded. Chihiro has not seen him without it since their meeting. “Is that a pun?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” In front of them is more forest, quieter, denser. He purses his lips. “Maybe if we split up, we can get this done faster.”

His partner pauses, raising an eyebrow at him. “Alright then, whatever you say. You wanna do the lakeside? Call me if you find anything.”

And that’s how Chihiro finds himself walking back towards the shore again, this time in a slightly northwest course towards the stretch yet unexplored. He can hear the waves lapping lazily at the shoreline as he approaches, soft gurgling murmurs under a summer sky. For a feat so large in operation he finds it honestly laughable just how little information they have—how does one even _start_ trying to find something one can’t recognize? Akashi had given them reports of supernatural disturbances around the area starting from years back, perhaps from means both legal and otherwise. Yet all they have is a paltry stack of paper.

So there _are_ secrets even Akashi Seijuurou can’t fully uncover.

“It’s probably just some fucking pixies,” he mutters aloud as he kicks aside a dead fish, a likely victim of yesterday’s quake. He can’t hear Nijimura anymore, though it’s not as if the hunter made much noise in the first place. Well. There is no reason not to make sure of every place the creature could hide while they map out the area. Chihiro looks up at the sky, wincing at its brightness.

“Try to think like you’re the one being hunted,” Nijimura had told him when they’d gotten off the boat. Become the prey. Chihiro leans against one of the pine trees, digging his fingers into his palms. It’s not as if that’s some kind of new revelation; everyone knows how to do that, don’t they? _Keep your head down._

Amidst the quiet, beyond the sound of waves, he could detect a soft noise of something pushing against the rocks.

Perhaps just garbage. Stepping carefully between some more fallen logs, Chihiro wrinkles his nose as he approaches another mound of rocks. Peat would give off this smell, or more dead fish. He runs a hand over the smooth surface of the rocks, skipping over the thriving moss, and stops cold.

_Call me if you find anything._

“What the _fuck_ ,” Chihiro whispers.

 

 

 

He doesn’t call to Nijimura as he steps closer to the corpse apprehensively, and this done only after taking off his shoes. The lake water chills his feet, his skin tingling with sensations of mud and stone, sticks and other things he doesn’t want to think about. It occurs to Chihiro that this water touching him is also _still_ touching the dead man he’s looking at, and he feels nauseatingly dizzy.

Chihiro had expected supernatural bullshit, not a fucking _murder mystery_.

—If it was a murder. As far as he can tell there are no external wounds, and it looks almost _too_ fresh. The man is half-encased in some sort of rubber wrapping; at a glance he looks much older than anyone Chihiro normally associates with. He doesn’t want to look any closer, really.

_The killer could still be around—_

He freezes temporarily as the sound of a cracking twig alerts him to this possibility. Then, exhale: he’d been the one to step on it. _Stupid, why the hell am I still here?_ He shakes his head, as if doing so would make the scene in front of him vanish. But the man is still there when he looks up, impeccable, partially wet, black suit and newspaper poking out beneath his jacket and all.

“Got anything interesting over there? I found some tracks—“

Nijimura’s voice is muffled by standard walkie-talkie static, but it sends him careening back into reality all the same. Chihiro leaps back up onto the muddy bank, almost losing his balance and falling face-first into the muck. It leaves him no choice, and he instinctively reaches down. “Hold on, I’m coming.”

He slips back into his shoes, his head throbbing dully as he makes his way back in slow motion. Maybe someone had injected all of their food with hallucinogens, but that wouldn’t explain the burrs in his feet and the folded, yellowing newspaper tucked haphazardly into his pocket. There could be any number of explanations—shipwreck, suicide, researchers killing each other over potential fame and fortune—

Chihiro stops at the marked tree. _Calm down_ , he tells himself. It might have nothing to do with him after all. It had simply been one unlucky dead man that he was unlucky enough to stumble upon. He doesn’t recognize the man, or recognize any stages of decomposition, or…

“You okay?” Nijimura is waving a hand inches from his face; Chihiro jerks his head back in surprise, shaking his head. “I mean seriously, you’re kind of extra pale right now.”

“I slipped in the water,” Chihiro tells him, voice steady. Nijimura looks at his feet. “Stepped on a dead fish.”

“Nice going,” Nijimura snorts, but there isn’t really any chastising there. He indicates towards the back with a hand up, and Chihiro exhales. The relief does not last long, however, as he turns his attention towards the unmistakable tingle in his spine of _something strange nearby_. “Quiet, I think it’s coming this way—”

 

 

 

“You look like you’ve been on quite an adventure,” Akashi comments, looking up at then from his computer. It’s not an understatement; Chihiro has mud streaked across his arms and more mosquito bites than he’s ever cared to have. Nijimura has a bandaged hand and a scowl on his face. “I don’t suppose you got into a brawl with the monster?”

“Brownie,” is all Nijimura says, holding up his hand, a piece of blue cloth pinched between his fingers. “Doubt it’s the monster, but at least we got something out of it before it bit me.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t radioactive.”

“Says the person who let it slip away.” Nijimura mutters, but he doesn’t press the point. Akashi takes the cloth from him, studying it carefully. “There wasn’t much else around that part of the lake, but we’ve finished mapping it.”

Just as well. Akashi doesn’t seem too hung up on the brownie escaping, though perhaps he would, if Chihiro would talk. Nijimura had basically forgotten about his antics as soon as they started chasing their newfound friend through the underbrush. But Chihiro could see Akashi eyeing him, hands in pockets and all, and it feels less like fire and more like the clammy feeling of water rushing over his skin.

He wonders if ripping off a brownie’s clothing is bad luck.

“Is there something else you wanted to say, Mayuzumi-san?”

Nijimura is studying him when he looks up, his own conversation with Akashi done. Chihiro could hear faint voices echoing from the other side of the library, behind the shelves—the others discussing their day’s finds in hushed tones. Normal sounds in a normal library. But all of that is thrown to the back of his head the moment he meets Akashi’s gaze again. “Not here.”

“Oh?”

“Can I borrow the other computer for a bit?” Nijimura interjects, his gaze flickering briefly towards Chihiro in the way of  _alright, I know where this is going_  before turning towards Akashi. “Just want to look something up.”

“Of course, Nijimura-san.” Akashi tilts his head at Chihiro. “Upstairs, then. One more thing.”

“…What.”

“Go wash your arms.”

 

 

 

 _Might wanna avoid going into his room_ , Nijimura had brought up vaguely during the course of their adventure. Chihiro had almost been tempted to ask _what, is there some kinky dungeon in there?_ or thereabouts, but realized halfway that he really didn’t want to know the answer. Only now, as he watches Akashi turn the doorknob, does he realize what Nijimura had meant. “Why don’t we go back to my room instead.”

“Why?” Akashi had to be either completely devoid of the sight or some kind of fucked up superhuman to be able to be so blasé about the lingering airs in his study. At this point, Chihiro is leaning heavily on the latter. Akashi’s face tells a different story, and his own face colors significantly. “Mayuzumi-san—“

“…Forget I said anything.” It’s not like he’s going to die being in the same room as some cursed dolls or decapitated animals or whatever it is creepy rich businessmen keep in their studies. Still, once he enters, he stands near the door instead of sitting down. Akashi looks amused as he sits down gracefully at his expensive-looking desk. “Look, this is serious, okay? Stop laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you, Mayuzumi-san.”

Chihiro rolls his eyes. The years between them seemed to have brought out a side of Akashi he had seldom known in school, yet it’s popping up at the most inopportune time. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I believe some elaboration is needed before accusing me of anything?”

Of course, though neither are in school anymore, Chihiro can still recognize the very slightest shift in atmosphere. They aren’t running across the same court anymore, aren’t meeting on a rooftop full of dreams that he’d discarded long ago. Despite that, despite everything…

“How bad is the competition between researchers?”

“Is that supposed to be rhetorical?”

“Just answer the damn question, Akashi.”

“I don’t believe you are here to ask questions, Mayuzumi-san.”

“…I’m not.” _If I look away now, it’ll be over._ “But I’m asking them anyway.”

If eternity could be condensed into one look, it would surely be the one Akashi is giving him right now. Chihiro feels his chest tighten, in the ridiculous fashion of those storybook plot twists, _you know too much now, I can’t let you live._ But in the next instant Akashi’s expression returns to that gently condescending gaze he’s so fond of. It’s not exactly meant to comfort him, but it is familiar. “There was some friction before you came, over property boundaries—but that’s all been solved now.”

“That doesn’t explain the corpse in the lake.”

“The _corpse_.”

“I don’t know who the hell it was, but there was—“ He swallows. Nothing about the situation has changed, and perhaps that’s what galls him more than anything. “Some dead guy by the shore not too far from where you dropped us off. Nijimura didn’t see it.”

“And why didn’t he?”

“…We got distracted.”

He can see the phone on Akashi’s desk, small and unassuming. Chihiro could almost picture Akashi reaching for it, calling for the butler, having him haul Chihiro out the door and lock him up in the pantry while negotiations with the police commence outside, in that order.

“I didn’t kill him,” is all he manages before Akashi’s fingers twitch and still. “I wouldn’t come to you like this if I had. You know that. Just…”

“Didn’t want to make a scene, perhaps even causing this entire trip to amount to nothing from police questioning that someone would inevitably instigate?”

Chihiro does not give him an answer right away, instead settling for the slightest jerk of his chin that hopefully says _yes, yes, whatever you just said, as long as it doesn’t come down to fucking me over_. As if he’d had so much respite from Akashi Seijuurou’s presence over the past few years that he doesn’t know how to deal anymore. “This reading minds thing is creepy, you know.”

“It was merely a statement,” Akashi replies. His hand is no longer hovering near the telephone. “I believe you, though I wish you’d told me sooner. However, that…is an unfortunate turn of events.”

 _An unfortunate turn of events_ , Chihiro thinks, feeling faint. He would rather not know what kind of worldwide catastrophe would be needed for Akashi to upgrade his choice of words. Of course he has no doubt Akashi has seen this sort of thing before, what with the usual rumors abounding around him and shady business dealings, his odd choice of hobbies and such. He looks up at Akashi (even now he cannot stop wondering how that is possible, so close are they in proximity now.) “I didn’t sign up for this, just so you know, but maybe we should, still—“

“It _is_ inconvenient,” Akashi agrees, looking down at the sheets on the table. Neither of them seem the proper amount of distressed over a mysterious dead man on the property—Chihiro hopes his silence says as much. He’s seen _his_ share of weird things, but even then he wonders if he’s still somehow in shock, too tired to process anything. Akashi touches his shoulder— _was that a shudder just now?_ Then the redhead looks up. The sensation is not uncomfortable, as much as Chihiro would somehow rather it be such. “To us and whatever poor soul is still out there. I’ll deal with it, Chihiro.”

His fingers brush against Chihiro’s neck, familiar, calming. There is no rain today, and the windows are shut, and yet—

 

(Are you content? _He could hear Akashi say, the Akashi-from-long-ago, who spoke his name like a tumultuous storm. That day on the rooftop, the day of graduation—he’d come to say goodbye, hadn’t he?_ )

 

Yet that had been but a wayward dream. Chihiro grabs Akashi’s hand, both of their limbs remaining suspended. In the periphery of his gaze he can feel eyes on him coming from the cabinet. His head swims. “What did you just say?”

Akashi smiles, the resigned gaze in his eyes more fitting now than they had been on his face years ago. “Nothing you won’t hear again.”

Chihiro lets go, dropping his hand to his side. “If that’s all, I’m gonna go sleep.”

“Of course.” He can hear the rustle of paper behind him as he turns. Though he’s already halfway out the door, Chihiro can’t help but look back, morbidly curious at the implication in that tone. It had never been a good sign. “Let’s keep this a secret for now, shall we?”

 

 

 

This time it is Nijimura who is already asleep, his hand next to the phone hanging off the table. Seeing him splayed out like this on the bed is almost a comical respite from what Chihiro had just experienced.

Chihiro reaches over his head for the phone, snatches it, and slams it back into the jack. In the course of that action Nijimura makes a muffled noise, rolling over. He frowns, pulling away, but it’s too late—Nijimura’s arm brushes against his, and he feels his fingers tightening.

_Ah, fuck._

“Don't…”

“I’m not your mom,” Chihiro says, trying to tug free. He succeeds only after the third try; his bedmate seems to have no idea what had just transpired, opting to take up most of the available bed space after his bout of dream-wrestling. Funny that he even makes that moue in his sleep; it's almost a little cute, Chihiro supposes. But he does not want a repeat performance of what happened earlier. Gingerly he pries Nijimura’s other, undecorated arm off his pillow, before he remembers he still needs to shower. “You better not be still like this when I come out.”

The heat of water rushing across his face does little to perk him up. All it does—Chihiro looks down at his arm, wincing at the faintest spasm of pain crawling across his wrist. The fact that Nijimura hadn't really woken upon contact is a relief; it isn’t often his body even reacts to such anymore. Then again, he also hasn’t seen an  _actual_ hunter’s charm in a long, long time, especially in disguise.

 _There are real monsters out there, Chihiro,_ he remembers his grandmother telling him in her mellifluous accent, on some bygone hazy afternoon. They had lived in the countryside then, an age before Chihiro had gotten swept into the world of shitty dime novels and melted into the shadows of the city. There is memory of her slim, bony fingers tapping on his shoulder, and he _had_ known then, oh— _Keep your head down, lest they see you. Keep your voice down, lest they hear you._

“I’m not afraid,” he tells the mirror hanging on bare porcelain walls. “However stupid that sounds.”

His reflection blinks back at him, slowly, obscured by condensation. Translucent, like the casing around the man, the dead man, the sinewy feeling that had sent jolts of disgust down his fingertips as he’d unwrapped it like a gruesome present. If the man’s eyes had moved, it had been but a mirage.

Nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a brownie (ùruisg) is a small spirit of british folklore, some of which inhabit houses and help with household chores in exchange for edibles. in scottish tradition, they are more likely to be found in the wild and are less sociable.
> 
> idk why but i love the headcanon that nijimura sleeps like the dead (when he's on the ground at least)


	6. N | From My Remembrance Shall Not Pass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nijimura dreams and Mayuzumi is, for all intents and purposes, rightly trying to steer himself away from this Fuckening Mess (it doesn't work).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont be like nijimura, kids   
> (he gets better)
> 
>  **content warnings:** discussion of fetishization, implied character death
> 
> (PLEASE do tell me at any time if there are other warnings you want me to place in any chapter, sometimes i miss things or don't exactly know how to word them v_v)

_Tatsuya pauses over the phone. “I thought you were looking for Nessie, no?”_

_“Yeah, but…” Shuuzou stalls, thinking how best to put it. “It’s not really related. I just got curious. I didn’t even notice with you, so I guess…”_

_“Well, you do remember what happened to me, don’t you?” A soft laugh echoes in his ear, and he feels a little embarrassed. “If you’re so curious…”_

 

It had initially been a vague idea in the back of his head, calling Tatsuya for some advice. Shuuzou lies in bed, listening to the muffled sound of running water—Mayuzumi is still inside, for however long he’s going to take. In the meantime, Shuuzou looks at his arm.

Tatsuya had taken him to get the charm done a few days after the company incident, out at some tiny shrine up in the Akita countryside where he’d gone to school. For all the reputation hunters get, their work _is_ dangerous. The best-paying jobs are never ones so simple as catching runaway brownies. Adrenaline rushes can only save him so many times, and he’s probably sidestepped fatal injuries more times than any normal person his age ought to have.

The charm is but a thin band of steel wound around his arm, hidden beneath his wristband. It had burned Tatsuya when he’d tested it, and the burn had stayed with him for hours, to Tatsuya’s amusement and Shuuzou’s horror. Despite the barely-noticeable itch that had sparked when Mayuzumi touched him, now Shuuzou knows why Mayuzumi seems to avidly avoid his left side.

“Huh,” he tells the ceiling. A more thorough search on the internet and book discussion forums had turned up descriptions such as _A mysterious author, perhaps of mixed background, nobody knows what he looks like. Could he be an alien?_ that suggest some level of self-deprecation. Coupled with what Hayama had mentioned…

It isn’t uncommon for halflings and such to get into this industry (as Tatsuya showcases beautifully), or even having full-blooded youkai tagging along. Tatsuya’s brother lives not far from them, in a house inhabited by a centuries-old _zashiki warashi_ who serves as occasional mediator and literary resource for many of Alex’s contracted hunters. The first time Shuuzou had met him he’d almost mistaken him for a ghost, so little presence did he possess. Sometimes Mayuzumi gives him an eerily similar feeling, though as Shuuzou notes from that close brush that he couldn’t _possibly_ be entirely—

The door opens.

Mayuzumi has a towel around his neck, hair still dripping water onto his bare chest as he steps out onto the carpet. He glances at Shuuzou. It’s too late to pretend to be asleep, as much as he _is_ tired. “Hey.”

At first he gets no answer. Mayuzumi hangs the towel up, and Shuuzou sees a small scar, barely visible, down the small of his back. _He’s not as pretty as Tatsuya_ , Shuuzou thinks, wondering it’s just the night that’s making him think such a thing. _But…_

Then Mayuzumi glances back at him. “You could’ve just asked.”

“I wasn’t sure if I should.” Admittedly, he is right. The way Mayuzumi looks at him, Shuuzou knows he doesn’t have any choice. He sighs, sinking fingers into the mattress. “Sorry. I did something really weird to you, didn’t I?”

As much as Mayuzumi’s face says _Doesn’t matter now, does it?_ he only shrugs and pulls a shirt over his head. Shuuzou closes his eyes, and in due time feels the weight of another person occupy the side next to him. “At least you didn’t try to kill me, I guess.”

Shuuzou glances at him. Mayuzumi isn’t fully turned towards him, but nonetheless—there is a little strangeness there, tension and release, in those eyes that usually register as dull or uninteresting. _Is this what you wanted to tell Akashi?_ “Really.”

“Yep.” Shuuzou sees his fingers twitch, perhaps reflexively, towards his side. _The scar on his back._ He wonders what had happened, but waits for Mayuzumi to spill. Something tells him he won’t be able to catch him so oddly willing to talk again for a while.

Instead, what he gets is a cold hand on his arm, Mayuzumi lifting it as if there’s all the reason in the world to do so. He blinks. Now _this_ is different. “It doesn’t work like th—”

“I know,” grumbles Mayuzumi, and he lets go. They stay like that for a while, with only the dim lamplight beside Shuuzou illuminating the room. He’s never noticed how bare the room is, compared to the long line of portraits outside, but the silence between them echoes on the walls, cream-colored and fading curtains. Above his head hangs a modernist reimagining of _The Monarch of the Glen_. It’s funny, he thinks—Mayuzumi’s hand is still on his arm, but neither of them move away this time.

It’s reassuring, almost.

Then Mayuzumi says _something_ —Shuuzou doesn’t catch all of it, the strange melodic words that roll off his tongue. There’s a tingle in his spine at the sound, a song shimmying up the length of his body, and this time the pinpricks on his arm are real. He thinks, drowsily: _Ah._ “Was that for me?”

“Go to sleep,” Mayuzumi says blithely. There is fatigue in his voice, too, but there is no real malice he can hear. Not yet. As he closes his eyes Shuuzou thinks about the blade he keeps under his pillow, how Mayuzumi sleeps closer to the edge of the bed than not, and the way he curls up with his head bumping against the table.

Whatever the cause of his sleepiness, it is most certainly time for rest from one of the strangest days he’s had so far.

 

 

 

 

(He sees the lake then, the vast deep lake, and in the middle of the dark blue gloom is a swan. Shuuzou blinks, and her white feathers ruffle in unseen wind. They are glowing.

Then he feels hands cupped around his chin, cold and firm.

_It was a mistake coming here._

He smells the lake-water then, the stale, muddy taste of its depths invading his tongue. Her words slip across his face, murmuring in the hollows of his cheeks, dipping high and low. Shuuzou realizes his eyes are still closed, but he sees, and knows: this is not someone he wants to fight. “Who are you?”

_I am only a dream. I cannot stay long._

“That’s not really helping me,” he says. The echoes unnerve him more and more with each passing second. Very few of the creatures he had encountered before wielded this sort of magic, and even then his charm was usually enough to keep them out of his head. Unless, of course… “Are you Nessie?”

The Surgeon’s Photograph, the most enduring hoax of them all, had shown a picture of a creature rearing its neck above the water. A real plesiosaur could not have possibly done this, but the arch of a long neck could be explained by a graceful waterbird. It would not be out of the realm of possibility, Shuuzou recalls vaguely, pulling memories from the dark. Legends of immortality, even—

A sigh tickles at his shoulder blades. _I am not who you seek, hunter._

“Then do you know where she is?”

The steady dripping of water answers him, shallow breathing, a flicker of flame. The fae do not give their secrets easily, as is the way with the spirits of his own country. That much is certain, but even then he waits.

For how long the silence went on he does not know, but it seems like forever spent in the darkest recesses of the earth. Her fingers scrape across his face, and he feels callouses he cannot see. Are these feathers, or are they fins?

Her lips brush against his, petrichor and ash. A familiar scent, somehow. _Times are changing, hunter. You must open the path yourself, if you wish to right those wrongs._

_You are not the only one swept up by these tides…_

Shuuzou sees it then, the buck at the lakeshore. It stares at him, radiating calm, but a sense of foreboding lingers in the back of his head. _Who are you?_ He wants to ask, but it is already opening its mouth. The single feat seems to swallow him whole.

 _Talk to the child of the maighdean uaine_.)

 

 

 

 

“Hey, Mibuchi.”

Only the two of them are sitting above deck, fresh on watch duty. Mibuchi puts down his book—a Lord Byron anthology, from the cover. Shuuzou resists the urge to smile. “Yes?”

“You know anything about swans?”

“Swans? I’d think asking Kou-chan or Ei-chan would be better—“

“No, I mean…”

He’d woken up that morning with a raging headache, magnified by a delayed realization of just how close his face had been to Mayuzumi’s. Would it have been part of his dream, if not for the fact that he found a single white feather resting on his lips.

A defective pillow, Shuuzou thinks now, but the backflips in his stomach do not stop. Mayuzumi is with Nebuya on another boat, too far away for him to see; if he remembers anything, he is not telling.

“Ah, in mythology?” Mibuchi leans against the railing, looking out over the lake. There are no waterfowl as far as Shuuzou could tell, no specks of white in the distance nor graceful turn of the wing. All he can see are other boats, pleasure crafts at the far end where Urquhart Castle stands, and research boats from other teams, scattered everywhere. Most are closer to home, though two he can see are close to where he and Mayuzumi had gone yesterday. “Do you want to know the story of Lir? Or the swans that drank from the holy well?”

“I had a dream last night,” Shuuzou tells him. “There was a woman who was a swan, or a swan who was a woman. Something like that. Shit, maybe I’m just too tired.”

Though he’s been around enough weirdness to know that’s never the case. Mibuchi turns back towards him. “Hm.”

“There was also a deer,” he recalls, but there is more basis for that. The painting above his head, Akashi’s grisly wall-decoration, the fact that he would occasionally run into one around—even then, it is all very strange. “It said something. The _maighdean uaine_.”

“The what?”

Mibuchi makes him repeat the phrase three more times until, satisfied with Shuuzou’s still somewhat mangled pronunciation, he dispenses his knowledge. “There are many legends about swan maidens, you know. I won’t be able to give you an answer until we return. But as for the other one— _maighdean uaine_ , the Green Lady. A benign water spirit, in some parts of this country. A monstrous blood-drinker, in other parts. It is said they lure men in with song, sirens of rivers and lakes.

“So, which one did you meet?”

“I wouldn't know,” Shuuzou says, his frown deepening.

 

 

He doesn’t see Mayuzumi until late that evening, on the hallway. This is the hard part: sitting still, waiting in shifts. Shuuzou had never been fond of this sort of siege method, but he is certain Akashi means to try everything he could at his disposal. It would only make sense, for none of the others seem to be partaking in anything resembling hunting.

Still.

Shuuzou takes a seat across from Mayuzumi at dinner. Akashi is present this time, between them at the head of the table. This is the only meal everyone really shares together now, being that their shifts end at different times throughout the day.

For a while there is little sound from the dinner table apart from the clinking of glass, cutlery touching plates. Nebuya burps and Mibuchi rolls his eyes, shoving a napkin at him. Mayuzumi pokes at his food halfheartedly.

“So,” Hayama says, all too loud for the size of the group. The question remains, that of why they use this long table at all, if the rest of Akashi’s employees aren’t even going to join them here. “What’s up with all those guys outside on the lawn earlier?”

Shuuzou sees the butler discreetly walk out the room, and for a split second he wonders if there would be a reenactment of the Massacre of Glencoe. _Of course not, what’s wrong with you?_ Akashi taps a finger idly on the edge of his plate, leaning back into his chair. Shuuzou wonders if all 25-year-old businessmen who are into collecting supernatural trophies have an aura of vague foreboding surrounding them. “The police, you mean?”

As subtle as the movement had been, Shuuzou does not miss the tightening of Mayuzumi’s fingers around his cup.

“There has been an attack,” Akashi continues calmly, as if relaying the weather. “Fortunately not on one of our own, seeing that we are all still intact. A hiker has been found dead.”

“An attack?” Nebuya puts down his fork. “Don’t tell me—“

“I do believe it only serves as another reason to continue our work, don’t you?” Akashi closes his eyes as uncertain gazes were exchanged around the table. “Yes, I would go as far to assume it a supernatural event, considering the circumstances.”

Mibuchi opens his mouth and closes it, while Hayama simply stares at him, fascinated. Shuuzou can see nothing to be fascinated about; unfamiliar as he is with Scottish law, it seems none of them had been brought in for questioning. He had arrived back at dock just as the police were leaving, and had thought nothing of it then but a routine checkup of some sort. But the reality of it only sends his stomach plummeting lower and lower. “What circumstances do you mean?”

“There will be another briefing for the entire group in the morning,” Akashi says as he stands up. Somehow in that span of time he has already finished eating. “I’m afraid I still have some calls to make.”

 

 

“Akashi, wait.”

He stops at the foot of the stairs, looking at Akashi, who’s already halfway up and indeed seeming in a rush. Shuuzou puts a hand on the rail. “Can I get just a minute? Please?”

Akashi blinks at him owlishly, slowing his steps. “One minute.”

“Tell me more,” Shuuzou says, as soon as he closes the door of his room behind him. A little too hard, he supposes, considering Akashi’s arched eyebrow. As much as he wants to, he has no time to ask about anything else, considering the circumstances—yesterday’s events, his dream. It occurs to him he still hasn’t asked Mayuzumi if Akashi knows about his heritage, but even if not he doubts Akashi would find out, sooner or later. “About the attack.”

The corner of Akashi’s lip twitches. “More? Don’t tell me you’re about to run outside right this moment searching for clues.”

“If it’s still early enough to make calls, I don’t think it’s too late to go outside.” Out of the corner of his eye Shuuzou can see the alarm clock read just past eight-thirty. Akashi looks at him strangely—but he sees a spark there, and that he latches onto for dear life. “You want to find this thing, don’t you, Akashi? If it’s hurting people now, we have a responsibility to stop it. Let me find it for you.”

One does not need to take an oath to become a hunter, though there exist countless unofficial brotherhoods, each with its own loose set of guidances. The only unifying rule that binds all of them, as Shuuzou has always understood it, is that _no human should be hurt_. Even then…

“Shuuzou.”

Akashi’s voice is soft but commanding, his eyes boring holes into Shuuzou’s own. Then, a noticeable quiver that Shuuzou definitely does _not_ hear all that often. “I know I ask a lot of you, but it is not my wish to see you hurt.”

Shuuzou exhales, and he moves over on the bed. “I know that. I don’t…want you hurt either, you know? If it knows—if _that’s_ why it’s attacking—”

“I want to show you something,” Akashi says suddenly, digging his fingers into the fabric, “Come to my room tomorrow, after dinner. Perhaps…I was not planning on displaying it, but it may well help you on your search, more than for the others.”

 _There it is again_ , the vague feeling of unbalancedness in the pit of his stomach. “Wouldn’t it be more—”

There’s a short, cursory knock on the door, and then it opens just a crack. “Am I interrupting something?”

Mayuzumi doesn’t sound the least bit apologetic. Shuuzou rolls his eyes, then quickly glances at Akashi, who shakes his head and stands, letting go of the sheets. _Not now._ “Still busy.”

“On the contrary, Mayuzumi-san, we are done here,” Akashi says, cutting him off smoothly as he walks to the door. “I’ll expect you both at breakfast tomorrow. Good night.”

He holds the door open for Mayuzumi, who does not look at him. There’s a knowing glint in Akashi’s eye as he walks out, one that Shuuzou tries to return with a smile, if confusedly. The door closes with a soft click. Mayuzumi stares at him; it’s a little unnerving, like the first time they met.

“Did he just call you...”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He glances up briefly, at the painting, then shrugs. “We ran into some of the Shuutoku people today.”

 _He’s talkative lately_ , Shuuzou thinks, but holds his tongue. It seems a better incentive for Mayuzumi to keep on going. Perhaps if he talks long enough, he’ll find out whether or not the events of yesterday night were just some hallucination or not.

“They said they found something.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know.” Then, “I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

Mayuzumi walks to the window, staring out at something unseen. Shuuzou walks up behind him, squinting into the darkness—there is nothing there, not even the lights that usually flanked the lawn. The moon is half-hidden behind the clouds, winking blearily at them. He reaches out. “About last night…”

“…Why are you bringing that up.”

“Well,” Shuuzou begins, and Mayuzumi turns around, flinching away from his hand. “Ah, sorry.”

“Nothing happened last night, Nijimura.”

“But—“

Then Mayuzumi was _gone_ , right before his eyes, and he took a step back. Instinct kicked in, his skin tingling as his outstretched fingers connect to something solid. Tatsuya might’ve dodged it; Kuroko would’ve phased through his hand.

Mayuzumi, though, was more human than either of them.

Shuuzou pins him down on the bed, though not with as much force as he would’ve liked. Mayuzumi levels an unimpressed stare at him. Though he _is_ leaning as far away from the charm as he possibly could. “Thought you were really gonna kill me.”

“I don’t think so.” He lets go slowly, but Mayuzumi doesn’t bother getting up. “What was the point of that, anyway? Is scaring me _fun_?”

“Huh.” Mayuzumi pushes his hand away, wincing. “You don’t get it at all, do you?”

Shuuzou presses his lips together, fixing him the toughest glare he could muster at the moment. “Maybe if you would tell me what _it_ means instead of playing mysterious, I’d know? This isn’t a fucking novel. People are fucking _dying_ out there, and you’re just—”

“I’m just what?”

Mayuzumi sits up suddenly, nearly smashing their heads together. He glowers up at Shuuzou, a hand grabbing at his collar. “You heard it last night, didn’t you? Some fucking joke, using me as a conduit. Do you really think you can capture something like…like _that_ —”

His voice is quiet but grating, and Shuuzou can _feel_ it—the slightest trembling of his hand, despite every ounce of his being trying to say the opposite. It’s a look he’s seen before, Shuuzou realizes, and plenty.

“Hey,” Shuuzou tries, closing a hand roughly over the other’s. He's no expert at comforting words; neither would Mayuzumi want that, really. _You've gotten yourself in a real fix now, Shuuzou_. “ _Hey_. I'm not gonna do anything to you. Neither is whoever that was, swan or buck or whatever. It was just a dream. That’s all.”

He feels the fingers slacken around the fabric of his shirt, and Mayuzumi falls back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Shuuzou watches him close his eyes. “It doesn’t work if you need to convince yourself.

“I was the one who found the body.”

“You found…”

“Yesterday.” Mayuzumi opens his eyes again, but they are unfocused, staring at nothing. “It was gone today. The other team found it, probably. I don't know what the fuck Akashi’s playing at—keep it a secret? Hah!”

Shuuzou blinks, sitting down next to him. That would probably explain what had happened yesterday, but then— “Why all of this then?”

“How the hell would I know?” And then, after a long moment, “Whatever he told you, you shouldn’t trust him. Hell, I shouldn't trust _you_. This place is fucked.”

“Mayuzumi…“

His reply only causes Mayuzumi to jab a finger at the light switch, leaving both of them in darkness. Inhaling, Shuuzou counts to ten inside his head—any less than that, and he might actually just pick him and shove him out the window. At least doing that might attract _some_ attention from all those things that go bump in the night, unlike their going around in circles without end.

“Then why are _you_ still here?”

The only answer he gets is Mayuzumi rolling to the other side of the bed, with not a peep coming from him. Shuuzou’s gaze flickers to the darkened outline of the painting, to the storm gathering behind the stag. He’s never felt like wanting to walk out of a job even more.

“Not gonna give me any answers either, are you?”

 

 

 

In the morning, Shuuzou wakes up to the sound of sirens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [zashiki warashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zashiki-warashi): a spirit that is childlike in nature, and "can be found in well-maintained and preferably large old houses. It is said that once a zashiki warashi inhabits a house, it brings the residence great fortune."
> 
> this is y'alls first warning that a non-major character death (as in, not the main trio) will occur over the next chapter/s...also no more ending on weird pillow talk for a while.


	7. Interlude I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay; getting swamped up in a lot lately orz.

They are hustled downstairs quickly by the staff, pale-faced and thin-lipped, and Mayuzumi _knows_.

The doors are shut, but a single window is left open by the grand hall. He walks towards that, whilst waiting in line as the officers call them in one by one. Akashi is nowhere to be seen, perhaps locked up in his office with the chief of police. Mayuzumi stares out the window, his gaze locked towards the open expanse of lake.

He can smell the storm in the air.

“Still think you can do anything?” He asks Nijimura, who comes to stand next to him. “You might as well leave.”

“Nobody’s leaving,” Nijimura replies. His voice seems less troubled than his expression, and he follows Mayuzumi’s gaze. “Two are missing from Shuutoku, and the head researcher from Kaijou. There was blood on one of their boats, they said.”

“The police won’t search the lake.”

“They won’t have to.”

Mayuzumi won’t pretend he knows what it feels like— _he_ writes novels for a living, and it does not matter a fig to him whether or not his books make or break someone else’s life. But then he looks at Nijimura and the crease of his brow, the clouds gathering in his eyes, the balled-up fists. He thinks about the corpse in the lake, the dates and headlines burning bright at the forefront of his mind…

_There are monsters out there, Chihiro._

“I’m not gonna ask you to promise anything,” he says, and Nijimura’s eyes widen as Mayuzumi, perhaps for the first time in his life, throws his lot behind the trouble brewing outside.

 

 

 

Nijimura falls in line behind Hayama and Nebuya, who are both unusually quiet. Well, it isn’t as if any of them see murder every day.

It’s not as if Nijimura _himself_ sees this kind of shit often, either. They walk out the library in single-file, though the police have long dispersed and none of them are beholden to keep together anymore. Still, it is safer in numbers.

There would be no outing today; the remainder of the afternoon is to be spent on analyzing samples in the laboratory out back. _What samples_ , Nijimura thinks: he’s seen all of them, all the knickknacks and specimens collected throughout the two weeks they’ve been active. It’s really not much to see, though Akashi has never as much uttered a peep of disappointment so far.

Which—

“Hayama,” he calls out as they reach the entrance of the grand hall, “Wait.”

“Yeah?”

Perhaps the most unnerving outcome of the investigation—other than the fact that three people are missing—is how subdued the rest of his teammates are. All of them had been cleared, but already rumors are springing up, and the restlessness could easily lead to something bad. Several of the smaller camps are already halting their progress and preparing to leave, or so he’s been told.

He points up at the woman smiling down at them. “Do you know who that is?”

“Her?” Hayama doesn’t even bother looking up, though he hangs behind as Nebuya goes on ahead. “Akashi’s mum, don’t you know? Someone at the party said his granddad had that painted.”

 _Of course_. “Do you remember who said that?”

Hayama frowns. “Eh, how would I remember? It was some guy asking around about—about— _us_ , I guess. Takao.“

On one hand, Nijimura isn’t surprised when he sees the other’s brow crease ever so slightly, recognition kicking in; he _had_ been right in his assumptions. On the other…

 

 

 

_February 28, 1975 — The Inverness Chronicles_

_Dozens perish in dinner party fire by Loch Ness_

_DRUMNADROCHIT — Bodies are currently being uncovered from a residential fire and collapse off north Milton Road on Saturday morning. Witnesses reported seeing smoke around 10 p.m. coming from the roofs. Initially thought to be from a bonfire celebration for a farewell party for multinational researchers working on the Loch Ness case, police were called around 10:30 p.m. to investigate._

_It is unclear at this stage how the fire started, though initial investigations point at the west wing of the second floor as the initial spot where the fire began. A collapse of supporting beams was reported by local firemen to have trapped guests in._

_The residence is owned by Sir Willem van Daal, an avid hunter and philanthropist well-known in the area. Mr. van Daal is believed to be trapped in the living room wreckage according to survivors’ accounts…_

 

 

 

The rain is falling again, soft and meek this time, casting a translucent pall over the lake. Akashi has yet to emerge from his study, no doubt engaged in an endless loop of calls.

“You know Hayama can’t shut up if his life depends on it,” Mayuzumi finally says, irritated. The rain doesn’t seem to be improving his mood much, and Nijimura can almost feel the palpable tension there. “Why did you have to ask him?”

“I needed to make sure.”

“Make sure of what? That everyone’ll find out about this before sundown?” He sweeps an arm towards the window. “Please.”

Make sure of _what_ , indeed. Nijimura stares at the bedsheets, at the crinkled yellowing morning paper cutout inches away from his fingers. It is not a tale he has heard before in his circle of acquaintances, and yet the eerie similarities to their predicament jump out at him nevertheless. “It might be a fake.”

“It’s not,” Mayuzumi says, almost perfunctorily. He isn’t looking at Nijimura. “It’s a real newspaper. Delivered every day without fail, to this house, for the past thirty years. This is the only edition missing from the library.”

Nijimura stares at him. “Alright. Let’s get all of this straight then, shall we? You found a body by the lake. It’s gone now, and so are three other researchers. _Dozens_ died twenty-five years ago, but somehow there’s not _one_ word of this on the Internet?”

“Believe me, I’ve checked.”

“How _do_ you know it’s not fake then?”

He’d seen his share of strange cases before, rattling scrolls in the old family attic, mountains where people went in to collect acorns and never came out again. In the end he found most of the perpetrators wanting only attention, or sustenance, and nearly all activities carried out over years and decades. It would be a different kind of magic, or simply terrifyingly bold preparation, to be able to do such a thing.

Or it could’ve been a human. Someone smart enough— _influential_ enough to have contained this from popular memory over the years.

“That’s almost 25 years ago,” Nijimura finds himself murmuring. “ _Only_ 25 years ago. The village must remember…at the very least, the death register—”

It is then Mayuzumi deigns to look at him, with those strange grey eyes that remind Nijimura who he is dealing with. There is no mistaking that look—he’d seen it all those years ago. “Oh, they remember. But will they talk?”

“That sounds awfully like you’d like them not to.”

_(The sound of the ball falling to the ground, bouncing dully, once, twice, echoed in his ears. Akashi had looked at him then, with those intensely burning eyes. “Do you believe in fate, Nijimura-san?”)_

“You think so?”

Mayuzumi’s fingers curl around the newspaper clipping, crinkling its edges, and Nijimura sees a puff of thin dust. Dust or smoke, it does not matter; they are already too close to fire.

 

 

 

He takes the steps up to Akashi’s study two by two, listening to the wind outside.

It’s nowhere as tumultuous as what Mayuzumi feels inside, and that’s a first. He doesn’t bother knocking on the door as he pushes it open. “Akashi—“

Akashi is not there.

Mayuzumi frowns. Surely Akashi had not left at all; he had not been present for dinner, having had the butler bring up his meal—the meal that is still sitting untouched on his polished mahogany desk. He waves a hand over it, finding it had already cooled significantly. “Akashi? What the hell…”

The phone rings suddenly, making him jump, but whoever it is hangs up after two rings. Right. _He must be swamped with calls after this morning…_

There is nothing immediately in Mayuzumi’s line of sight that would suggest foul play of sorts, but it _is_ then he realizes just how hard his heart had been thumping in his chest. The strange sensation of being watched returns with every step he takes, examining every corner of the room without giving any pause to the cabinet in the far corner.

Their eyes are following him, he’s certain. Especially the stag strung up on the wall.

After a full ten minutes of looking around he gives up, plopping down on Akashi’s seat. Nothing on the desk interests him; there isn't even a map of bus routes, something that he finds himself thinking about after that particular conversation. Maybe he'll find something in the library, without the eerie sensation creeping down the back of his neck. The tingle in his spine would never leave as long as he stays in here—Mayuzumi purses his lips, kicking at the inside of the desk. As much as he loves being left alone, being alone _here_ …. It had been an exceedingly stupid thing to do, coming all the way out here, getting tangled in a mess he hadn’t wanted—

His feet scrape against the ground, coming up against something hard.

“Huh…?”

Mayuzumi kicks the chair back, leaning out of his seat. He squats down—the space under the desk is surprisingly comfortable, he finds—and runs his hand over the thick carpeting until he locates the offending object. A hidden latch, metal by the feel of it. Mayuzumi crawls back a little, then presses his ear to the carpet.

It’s faint, very faint, but he would not mistake those voices coming from beneath.

“Sei-chan?”

Mayuzumi hits his head on the desk, gasping lowly as he pulls his legs back under. It’s an uncomfortable position, but he has no time to do more before there is a knock on the the door. It opens, and he hears an audible pause. “Sei-chan? I’m sorry, this is urgent—are you busy?”

“I thought he was up here the whole time,” Nebuya’s voice cut in as they enter. “Maybe he went out to deal with the Shuutoku people.”

“Hm,” says Mibuchi. He does not sound particularly convinced; Mayuzumi holds his breath as they come around, moving papers and various objects above his head. “Perhaps. I don’t recall seeing him go out.”

Nebuya sighs as he presses his weight against the desk. “Well, can’t think of anything else. You sure there’s a problem with the numbers? He won’t be too happy with that, on top of everything else.”

“I wish it weren’t the case,” Mibuchi replies with a sigh. “I’ve double-checked with Hayama and the sonar crew, it just doesn’t make _sense._ Now, if Sei-chan could…”

They talk for a few moments more, about the disappearances and more, but by this time Mayuzumi is tuning them out, instead focusing his attention to the concealed entranceway beneath him. Why would such a thing be here? Of course, it would make sense for there to have a secret hideout in case—well, some sort of inconvenience people like him wouldn’t know about. Debtors coming to get him, maybe, mafia problems, whatever.

The door closes with a click as Mibuchi and Nebuya exit the room. Hesitating for a second, Mayuzumi crawls out from underneath the desk, stares at the heavy wooden frame, and exhales. The vibrations of their footsteps fade away as he puts his ear to the ground again.

A faint melody finds its way to his ear, freezing him to the spot.

His grandmother had never taught him her ways, having no use for them in a land far away from home. Truthfully, he had never wanted to learn. But Mayuzumi remembers the nights when he would sneak out of bed, tiptoe to her door, and listen to her sing, the song that he hears so clearly now—

 

_If the sand be your pillow,_

_If the seaweed be your bed;_

_If the fish are your candles bright,_

_If the seals are your watchmen…_

 

_Thump, thump, thump._

He runs out of the room with its thousand eyes staring at him.

 

 

 

“What was that?” Nijimura asks through chattering teeth, looking up nervously at the stairway behind them.

“Perhaps someone’s knocking on the door.”

“That didn’t sound like the door to me.”

Akashi pays his words no mind, instead opting to fiddle with the complicated-looking lock at the base of the steps. Nijimura breathes in and almost chokes on the dust from the ceiling. He fumbles with the flashlight, its light eerie in the dimness.

Hell, he’d been to plenty of creepy hideouts before, but he hadn’t expected a place like this to exist right under Akashi’s _desk_.

“My great-grandfather had this constructed during the war,” Akashi murmurs, as if reading his thoughts. There’s a small click as the door rattles, creaking open to reveal another dark tunnel. “Though the Germans never made it this far. Still, it has become very useful for storage.”

Nijimura has to stoop low to follow Akashi downwards, noting its strange design; it must be completely hidden within the walls of the building, a well-kept and lighted base. The stonework to either side seem to become cruder, older as they descend, until Nijimura is almost certain they’re _beneath_ the house itself. How old the Akashi mansion is he still has no idea, but the foundations, at least, seem to date back ages. He brushes a hand against the stone, its rough surface tickling his palm.

It’s also very, _very_ cold, and his wrist is starting to hurt.

“Well,” Akashi finally says at the tunnel’s end, as he flips the light switch. “I’m afraid it looks a little ragged and dusty sitting in here—”

“Holy shit,” Nijimura cuts him off, trying to take in all of it at once. He had expected the room, perhaps twice the size of Akashi’s study, to be filled to the brim with all sorts of monster paraphernalia, maybe even some bones, anything that would’ve justified that ominous comment from yesterday. Instead, he is looking at a mostly empty room, the floor bearing marks that tell of furniture existing at some point. An ornate chair sits in the middle, its dark wood and scarlet velvet lining gleaming under the light. Still, it is what’s draped over the chair that draws his attention in.

“I’ve wondered…”

He watches Akashi stride forward, brushing his fingers through the pelt. There’s a strange sheen to the russet fur he can’t quite place his finger on, and as to what sort of creature it is, he can only tell a similar size to that of a man. “Akashi, what _is_ that?”

“It washed up by the shore three years ago,” Akashi tells him as he approaches. “There were tests, of course, but…”

“Can I touch it?”

Akashi tilts his head in agreement, and Nijimura places a hand on the pelt.

It is softer than anything he has touched before, surprising for the temperature it's kept in. There is a jolt of what feels like electricity, much clearer than what he'd felt with Mayuzumi, as his wrist touches the fur. But there is no burn, no smoking hair, and for a second he thinks there must be nothing too special about it after all.

 _I am only a dream_ , a voice whispers then, fleeting. He might’ve imagined that too, so swift did it disappear, but a strange tune persists in his ear. Nijimura lifts his fingers, feeling lightheaded as the music subsides. “Jesus. You sure you want to keep this sort of thing here?”

“I’ve wondered if this what I’ve been searching for, myself,” Akashi says. There’s a softness in his eyes, childlike. “A silly thought. Do you know of Eliot’s poetry?”

Nijimura frowns. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Akashi.”

“ _I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each_ ,” he recites, closing his eyes. Nijimura has no knowledge of British poetry, and would not pretend to know. Still, even he can hear the rue in Akashi’s tone. “ _I do not think that they will sing to me_.”

He reaches out and touches Akashi’s shoulder, tentatively at first, then settling in to the familiar structure of his body. Something he would recognize anywhere, whether in the din of the basketball court or a perhaps haunted mansion too far away from home. “I’m sorry.”

If there had been a tinge of vulnerability to his features, it is gone now, as he opens his eyes once more. “There is no need to be, Shuuzou. I just want to know if it told you anything of consequence."

"What _it_ told me?"

"That, perhaps, can tell us more about the loch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The partial lyrics are from a traditional Scottish song called [Ailein Duinn (Dark-haired Alan)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailein_duinn); the poetry Akashi recites is from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
> 
> There is no newspaper called The Inverness Chronicles (though you may find a real paper with a similar sounding name...)
> 
> Cute furry things like seals and otters _can_ be spotted swimming in the loch (the River Ness eventually empties into the Atlantic...eventually), but only very rarely. :)


	8. M | With Its Phantom Chased For Evermore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayuzumi finds something that connects them all in the worst way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow ive been away for way too long... sorry guys i got kicked in the ass by my muse orz but! i am...back...sort of.

_missing japanese man scotland 1975_

Chihiro enters the admittedly vague string of words and waits.

The search engine seems to become agonizingly slow as the night wears on, as he sifts through page after page of unrelated content. There are thousands of cases of disappearances every year, perhaps in Japan alone— _was_ that man even Japanese? He doesn’t know; all he knows now is how unimaginably bored one must be to even look into an obscure case like this. Not a mysterious urban legend of arson, that’s what it is.

Which would suit the murderer just fine. Chihiro takes another sip of tea and continues.

“Still working?” Mibuchi says as he emerges from the shelves, precariously balancing a stack of books on one hand and holding a coffee mug in the other. It’s nearing eleven, Chihiro notes, but he isn’t about to turn in just yet. “By the way—“

“What.”

 _Land disputes threaten… Economic crisis force families to flee… Interview with retired teacher—_ Chihiro’s eyes light upon a single promising line, but Mibuchi’s question breaks his train of thought. “

“What were you doing up there?”

Chihiro doesn’t look away from the screen. His breathing is regular, heartbeat steady, but he already knows it’s no good lying at this point. “I was looking for Akashi.”

“And why would Sei-chan be under the table?” He twitches at the sound of books being heaved towards a shelf. Mibuchi stays where he is, mostly, only pausing to make sure the shelf can take the weight. Chihiro turns around. “Actually, I don’t even want to know.”

“I wasn’t looking to murder him, for the record.”

“Okay,” Mibuchi returns, unconvinced. This, Chihiro realizes, is the second time in two days he’s had to say that; perhaps the universe is on to something, and he doesn’t like what that implies. He shakes his head, but Mibuchi is already turning away. “What you heard up there was nothing you wouldn’t have known had… _this_ … not happened. For the record."

 _Okay_ , Chihiro begins to say, but stops as Mibuchi’s gaze flickers across the shelf again. It’s a look he’s seen before on many others; the one of _sometimes, people give so much more to a silent wall_. He’s not disappointed when Mibuchi opens his mouth again.

“You haven’t seen the data, I’ll presume?”

“Right, I’m just the spooky detector.”

Mibuchi purses his lips. “…Anyway, there’s definitely something up. The cameras go blank for periods of time, several minutes each night at irregular times. Nebuya says he makes sure they’re all fixed in place, but…”

“You think it crawls out of the lake, turns the cameras off, and crawls back in?”

“That would require some expert maneuvering of a thing so large.”

“We don’t even know _how_ big it is,” Chihiro mutters. The screen blinks at him wearily, and he impatiently clicks on whatever it is that just popped up. “Maybe you could get new equipment. Doubt Akashi won’t have enough to cover that if he really wants to find it.”

He’s met with a split second of hesitation, but that’s enough to convince Chihiro to file that tidbit away for later. “Doubtless. Perhaps you can ask him in the morning.”

 _Maybe I will_ , Chihiro thinks as he watches Mibuchi leave. He turns back to the computer, quickly scanning the page—it’s part of a school anniversary interview with a teacher, he realizes about halfway, owing to the shitty formatting and awful resolution. Chihiro squints at the tiny words dotted across the screen.

 

**_…What would you say has been your biggest regret, Coach?_ **

_Ah…I do not regret anything I have done at this job one bit, as teaching has always been a passion of mine. Young minds, so young and malleable, capable of curiosity…we were all like that once, weren’t we?_

**_Of course we were all young once, Coach. I heard you went on quite a few adventures when you yourself were younger, is that right?_ **

_Well, I cannot deny I have always loved to travel. Europe in those days was a big draw, and still is. From the south of France to Scotland’s lonely peaks. Wild horses running through the heather…there are wilder places I’d like to travel to, but I can still see it in my mind even now._

**_Did you travel alone?_ **

_…Ah. There is something special about traveling alone in strange lands, but no, not always. Old friends, students, invitations from the unexpected… The children you see now running about the court, they’ll grow up to bring awe to the world, Mr. Suzuki. You never know what the future brings._

**_Of course, very true. Is there anything you want to further add…_ **

 

The rest of the interview meanders down into other topics, about various awards won by the prestigious high school—Chihiro vaguely remembers its name, even being on the other side of the country. The date reads May 2, 1991.

A picture of the coach shaking hands with the mayor loads laboriously onto the screen.

“What the fuck—“

Chihiro hits the back button not a second too soon, as he drops the mug from his shaking hand, splashing lukewarm tea onto the soft carpeting as it spins and stops. The man, the coach—it _had_ been him. The body in the lake.

“Oi, keep it down!”

Someone far down the hall speaks up, but no footsteps follow. The new pages shows him an obituary, telling him of a Mr. Shirogane Kozo, born 1947 and a native of Tokyo, who died of heart failure in 1996.

 _Three years ago_. The words burn into his mind as he pushes the buttons on the printer, listening for sounds outside. Then he closes the tab, pauses, and wipes away his search history. Tissues are haphazardly thrown to the ground as he picks up his cup and hurries from the library.

_I need a ride tomorrow. A ticket to Inverness._

His shirt catches an edge of a book from Mibuchi’s pile, sending it tumbling to the ground. Chihiro doesn’t bother to look back after the dull thud, not even when the pages lazily turn to a bookmarked section on the _glaistig_.

 

 

 

Chihiro does not sleep that night, and for good reason as it is not until the wee hours of the morning that the door clicks open quietly behind him.

“Did you really stay up waiting for me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Chihiro says, but he’s too tired for it to pack much heat. When he glances back at Nijimura he sees a bruise already forming at the edge of his collarbone. _Great_ , he thinks. _Did they fuck in a monster’s treasure trove? Is this what this whole trip is really about?_

For a moment his grandmother’s voice murmurs at the back of his head, but it is gone as soon as he stands up. Nijimura, seemingly oblivious, moves to the other side of the room and rummages through the dresser. The air feels thick and brittle all at once; Chihiro swallows, his tongue stuck at the base of his mouth.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, at almost the same time Nijimura blurts out “Were you up in Akashi’s room?”

Silence.

“I think,” Nijimura says, carefully now, “Okay. Maybe we have some issues to work out first, before—”

“No shit.” Chihiro stares at him, the moonlight catching in each fold of his clothes, in the dips and crevices of his neck. The bruise is stark against his skin, and Chihiro’s thoughts falter.

Luckily Nijimura seems to not have noticed it, or if he does, he doesn’t let on. “Okay, I don’t know what _you_ were doing, but I was just—it was an invitation. There’s a fortified bunker down from the war, and he wanted to show me around, I guess.”

“And you saw what? A body?”

“No.” He pauses, looking for words. “It was red. I don’t remember what it’s called. Like…a mermaid, but a seal.”

“A selkie?”

 _It was red_. Chihiro pictures Akashi turning into a seal, slipping in and out of the lake at midnight to smack the security cameras around the perimeter of the lake. The image has little more than half-materialized in his mind when Chihiro bursts out laughing, startling Nijimura so much he takes a step back. “Hey, what the hell?”

“You must’ve heard wrong,” he says, after the laughter has receded to the back of his throat. _No, that’s impossible_. “There were legends here long before people started making toy plesiosaurs and dropping them in the lake. About the water horse, not a selkie. It was just the wind, whatever you heard.”

_That’s what you want to think._

“Even if that’s true,” Nijimura replies slowly, and suddenly Chihiro feels the dread pooling in his stomach at hearing what comes next. “I heard it sing. And Akashi—”

“There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there,” Chihiro cuts in, unable to contain himself any longer. “Don’t you think it’s weird? The body I found—look.”

Nijimura looks down at the picture he holds, the expression in his eyes unreadable.

Chihiro touches his lips, which feel more like cracked sandpaper than flesh. For the majority of his life he’s gone unnoticed, untouched by what traces of magic still lurked beneath Tokyo’s busy roads. City magic is not the same, though; not stronger or weaker, but chaotic in a different sense. Here, the land is old and strange, and he finds himself more wary of it than familiar, these days. Still, he does not expect the photograph to float to the floor, the shaking of fingers other than his own.

“I’ve met this man before.”

Silence. Chihiro counts the drips in the sink, three times, before he replies. “What.”

“He was my coach in middle school. Mine and Akashi’s.”

 

 

 

“We’re not doing this,” he tells Nijimura as he stands in front of the door, blocking his way. “ _You’re_ not doing this. Why can’t we wait until tomorrow?”

“I need to know now.”

“He’s asleep,” Chihiro says. “Or disposing the bodies, or whatever the fuck—“

“Akashi wouldn’t have killed anyone.”

“If you’re still so certain of that, why are you going now?”

“Why the fuck would he have called us here then?” Nijimura yells, loud enough that it really wakes both of them up. They stare at each other, nose to nose, and still the warmth of Nijimura’s body does not comfort him. Chihiro sees a light flicker on outside their window, then extinguish.

 _Why indeed_ , Chihiro thinks. _If the alternative was to never see us again_. Instead, he feels strangely calm as he walks right past Nijimura towards the bed, plopping down without looking at the other. “…Whatever. I’m going to sleep.

“He’ll still be there in the morning.”

 

 

 

_Chihiro remembers all too well that last day of high school, the scenes of a decade ago playing out strangely vivid in his head._

_They’d lost the championship that year, a bitter end to an unremarkable high school career for him. Of course, it was only basketball—Chihiro’s heart had been set on less athletic goals for college, though it still stung a little as the team walked back to the locker rooms. Maybe it was then his lips twitched a little, at the thought of Akashi failing for the first time since they met._

_Or it did not matter, because Akashi, as always, knew._

_They had not been particularly close, or Chihiro thought they had not been; as tumultuous as things had been, he had not had the time nor will to figure out his own feelings on the matter until shortly before things came to a head. The first meeting on that rooftop that had changed everything and nothing all at once, to the last._

_In any case, Chihiro had not expected to find Akashi sitting at his usual spot on the rooftop._

_“Chihiro.”_

_The setting sun had tinted his eyes golden. Chihiro walked towards him in a daze, half from exhaustion and boredom of having to sit through a monotonous ceremony, the other half…_

_What was it, again?_

_Akashi had reached out a hand. In the dying light, he'd seemed almost immaterial._

_“Won’t you help me up?”_

_“Are you here to say goodbye?” He remembers asking. “Well, I’ll be going now. Goodbye.”_

_Still, Akashi had touched his hand._

_There was something bitter in the air on that sunset rooftop, and sweet, and Chihiro’s memories shift to nothing as he is pulled down, down, down…_

 

 

 

…into the water, the deep dark water, and he opens his eyes. The momentary reveling of being able to breathe in such a place is taken over by an eerie stillness, a chill to the bone, as he turns slowly.

Akashi is there.

Akashi is there, inside a thin film of something plasticine, like what he saw days ago. His entire body shakes; there is evil inside the water, all around him, the taste of it bitter on his tongue.

Still, he nears the figure. Akashi’s eyes are closed in something close to slumber, though Chihiro cannot tell if he is still breathing. _Am I still breathing?_

He reaches out, and suddenly there is a pressure on his wrist.

In the struggle that ensues he forgets for a moment that this is a dream, under water, as the golden light shining from Akashi’s eyes takes his mind off everything else. Chihiro tries to pull away, but Akashi’s hand, broken through the film, is clasped iron tight around his wrist.

“What the hell?“

“Chihiro,” Akashi says, but it is not the voice of the Akashi he knows. “Come here.”

 _He loved you, you know_.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—let go of me! I said _let_ —“

Akashi smiles and opens his mouth, and all Chihiro sees are rows and rows of teeth, teeth that should not be there, sharp and white. Then it is _all_ he sees, and the dark, as he is hurtled headfirst into the gaping maw, the spin of gravity unrelenting, and all he feels is a searing pain—

 

 

 

_—I would drink, though all would abhor_

_Of your heart's blood after you were drowned—_

 

 

 

_“Can you hear me?”_

_“Wake up!”_

_“Oi, Mayuzumi—“_

_“He needs me, he needs—“_

Chihiro opens his eyes, gasping as he finds himself on the floor, his face barely inches from the covers that were strewn all over the dark carpet. He looks up, a hand on his neck; the door is thrown ajar, and the footsteps of his bedmate echo dully down the hall. Dimly, he recognizes his walkie talkie next to the table, the rest of the items in disarray. “Nijimura? What—”

There is no answer.

“It was a dream,” he tells himself, shaking as he stands up. The darkness of the hallway seems to leer back at him, through the portraits lining the walls. None of the doors open, nor do the lights turn on, although surely, surely—

_He needs me._

This time he cannot wait for help to come, and all caution is thrown to the air as his follows Nijimura into the unknown.


End file.
